The life and labors of Rev. E. M. Marvin, one of the bishops of the M. E. church, South , together with a discussion of some of the more important points of doctrine and principles of church polity taught by the Methodist Episcopal churches.

THE LIFE AND LABORS

— OF—

REV. E. M. MARVIN, D. D, LL. D.

—ONE OF THE—

BISHOPS OF THE M. E. CHUECH, SOUTH,

— TOGETHER-

WTTH A DISCUSSION OF SOME OF THE MORE IMPORTANT

POINTS OF DOCTRINE AND PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH

POLITY TAUGHT BY THE METHODIST

EPISCOPAL CHURCHES.

—BY—

D. R. MANALLY.

ST. LOUIS :

Logan G. Dameron, Agent,

ADVOCATE PUBLISHING HOUSE.

1878.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by

LOGAN D. DAMERON, AGENT.

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

CONTENTS.

Preface 5

CHAPTER I.
Introductory 9

CHAPTER II.
Heredity is

CHAPTER III.
Boyhood , 20

CHAPTER IV.
He Joined the Church 36

CHAPTER V.
He was Converted 47

CHAPTER VI.
A Calu to the Ministry 62

CHAPTER VII.
Itinerancy 75

CHAPTER VIII.
Circuit Life 95

CHAPTER IX.
Station Life ... 117

4

CONTENTS— CONTINUED.

CHAPTER X.
College Agency 132

CHAPTER XI.
The Presiding Eldership 147

CHAPTER XII.
Army Life 178

CHAPTER XIII.
The Episcopacy 191

CHAPTER XIV.
The Episcopacy— Continued 209

CHAPTER XV.
The Episcopacy— Continued 227

CHAPTER XVI.
Foreign Mission Work 240

CHAPTER XVII.
Literary Labors 263

CHAPTER XVIII.
Literary Labors — Continued 275

CHAPTER XIX.
Literary Labors — Continued 290

CHAPTER XX.
Personalty 315

PREFACE.

Unless the subject be of extraordinary character, or has filled
a very large space in the public eye, there is, in these days, very
little encouragement offered for the writing of biographies,
and especially for what are usually called religious biographies.
When we have learned the essentialities and leading character-
istics of one man's religious experience, we have learned the
essentialities and leading characteristics of the religious expe-
rience of every man. As Christians, they have all been baptized
by the same Spirit — " all mind the same things and all walk by
the same rule." Then there is, perhaps, no denomination of
Christians that has in the same length of time given to the world
so many religious biographies as have the Methodists. So
many have they put forth that even themselves, as a body, seem
to have become well nigh, if not entirely satiated. Of the four
millions of Methodists now living, how many of them ever at-
tentively read Dr. Whitehead's, or Moore's and Coke's Life of
John Wesley — or Drew's Life of Coke, or the three admirable

6 PBEFACE.

volumes of autobiography of Adam Clarke, or Everett's Life of
the same, or the Life of Richard Watson? Of the three mil-
lions and more of Methodists in the United States, how many
of them ever read the Life of Bishop Asbury, or of Bishop
Emory, as written by his son; or Bishop Paine's Life of Bishop
McKendree, or Dr. C. Elliott's Life of Bishop Roberts; or Dr.
Clark's Life of Bishop Hedding? Or of the more than seven hun-
dred thousand Southern Methodists, how many ever read Hen-
kle's Life of Bishop Bascom, or that excellent volume, the Life of
Capers, by the chaste and classical scholar, Bishop Wightman?
How many of all the Methodists now living have read these
books? Perhaps not one in a hundred, if one in a thousand.

If, then, such biographers, with such subjects, had so limited
a hearing, when the biographer is less able, and his subject, to
say the least of it, not more distinguished than were theirs, very
little can be expected.

Then when we come to biographies and autobiographies of men
of somewhat less note, such as T. Ware, J. Gruber, Jas. Quinn,
Peter Cartright, Jacob Young, Yalentine Cook, Philip Gatch,
John Collins, Joseph Travis, and others of that day, we find
the number of readers still more limited, while most of those of
still later date have fewer still. As an instance : The late
William G-. Caples, of the Missouri Conference, was a man of
decided ability and of extensive usefulnesss. In many respects
he was the equal, and in some the superior of his biographer.
Bishop Marvin favored the church and the world with a well-

PREFACE. 7

arranged, well-written and interesting life of his friend and co-
laborer. It has been before the public eight years, and less than
six hundred copies have been sent out by the publishers. With
these facts before him the present author had no encourage-
ment, inclination, nor desire to attempt a detailed account of the
Life and Labors of Bishop Marvin; but that life and those labors
furnished an appropriate text for the presentation and dis-
cussion of some points in Methodist doctrine and economy,
which the author believed needed to be before the church.
The opportunity was favorable, and he embraced it, as he had a
perfect right to do. How he has accomplished his work the
reader will judge for himself. He asked no one's permission to
write — he sought the assistance of none — he had from the first
all the materials he desired, and has used them in the following
pages agreeably to his own original purpose. And, as the read-
er will perceive, in presenting questions of doctrine and church
economy, he has at the same time given all of the most promi-
nent features in the life and the labors of the Bishop.

It was at first intended to send out this volume during the
first or second week in May last, and it could have been done.
But on the 16th of last March, and after a part of the work was
in type, the author learned by announcements in the public
prints, that a Biographer had been selected and the work be-
gun, or about to be begun. Then* to show that the present
writer did not propose to interfere with any one's rights or
privileges, nor to stand in the way of any, he, on his own mo-

PBEFACE.
tion and of his own accord suspended publication of this volume
to give reasonable time for another. Five months have passed
since then, and now, with charity for all, and malice or ill feel-
ing to none, he sends out this volume, which, while by no means
free from defects, and might have been better than it is, may
still be of some service to every candid person who may give it
an attentive perusal.

THE AUTHOR.

St. Louis, August, 1878,

LIFE AND LABOKS OF BISHOP MAKYIN.

(Sfoapte* &x#L

INTEODU CTORY .

THE uses and abuses of biography are many and
great. Itis the foundation of all history- Nay,
itis the superstructure as well. It isthe substance, as
it is the substratum of the annals of civilization. All
science, human and superhuman, must find in bi-
ography its last and only intelligible term . For what
is knowledge without a subject, or revelation without
a prophet? Its scope is universal and infinite. It
predicates intelligence and will ; and, without intelli-
gence and will the universe is empty and nought. It
rises to the height of human excellence, and descends
to the bottom of human depravity and guilt. It is
great as the life of benificence and purity, and little
as the life of selfishness and sin. It has to do with
all things to which life is related. The petty inci-
dents of manual and mechanical experience are in no
sense the biography of an individual. These things
are common to all men, and can not distinguish one
among the many They only serve to confuse and

10 INTB OB UC TO'R Y.

blend him with the common mass. And this is true
in spite of the prevailing fashion of constructing bi-
ography out of a mere accumulation of details.
This method proclaims the nnworthiness of its hero,
and says to every soul, not idle or giddy, " Go else-
where for what you seek.'

But biography, worthily written, is the entertainer
and instructor of the noblest minds. They feel the
pulse of the highest sympathy, and thrill in answer
to its throb. With the exceptional and abnormal of
excellence, and especially with its outcome in action,
they have the closest and tenderest fellowship. It
is the poverty of this element, in biographies so-
called, which has driven the world to the invention
of fiction. If men can not find this pabulum of their
ideal life in those literary forms which wear the stamp
of authenticity, they will seek them in other forms ;
and this demand will always create its own supply.
But all men prefer to find it where it really is (if
only it could be reached and produced), in the lives
of men of uncommon mental stating. And that
it is not so found and brought forth, for the de-
light and inspiration of the world, is the fault of the
small men who write the lives of great ones. Of
course, he whose life is worth the writing or the
reading, save as an accidental link in some historic
chain, must have differed widely and greatly from
the average man — must have been, in effect, a hero.
No transient and local importance, or fortuitous re-
lation to great events, can excuse or substitute in-

INTRODUCTORY. 11

trinsic greatness in the subject of such a work. No
degree of skill in the artist can hide the poverty of the
original design. If the landscape or the face contain
no features worthy of admiration, the highest efforts
of genius must be wasted in an attempt at reproduc-
tion. But, the worthiness of the subject granted, and
the treatment correspondingly able, the result must
be a book which the world can not afford to forego',
and will not suffer to die. It is a fountain of refresh-
ing to the weary pilgrim or toil-worn laborer, to which
he will return again and again, with added thirst and
keener zest ; while, for him whose larger thought
seeks the raison cT etre of his kind, whether for per-
sonal consolation under the burden of life's mystery
or the instruction of others, it is the most satisfying
of all the sources of wisdom and of hope.

It is conceded that, of all the springs of conduct,
the most powerful and enduring is example. No
virtue can well resist the contagion of habitual asso-
ciation with vice ; and no vice can long survive in the
unchanging atmosphere of virtue. It is on this ac-
count that we guard so carefully, and that we ought
to guard much more carefully than we do, the social
surroundings of our children. Experience has taught
us that they will take the moral complexion of their
associates. And this lesson of common experience
is confirmed by the best results of reasoned thought.
We are moved and swayed by moral influences ; but
moral influences reach us through the door of our
open and voluntary attention. There is no other

12 INTRODUCTORY.

means by which they can reach or affect us. That
which we do not perceive is, for us, as if it did not
exist. It can never be either a factor in our conduct,
or an element in our character But that to which
we attend, whatever it may be, must be one, and
may be both. And the force of surrounding influ-
ences is always graduated by the energy of attention
which we give to surrounding objects. Now, there
are few other things in the universe to which we give
such natural, eager and sustained attention as to the
actions of others of our kind. To this we are drawn
by the native force of an irresistible sympathy And
this is the simple philosophy of the influence of ex-
ample. But biography is example crystalized, and
yet glowing with life ; durable as the diamond, yet
warm and subtile as the sunbeam. Our closest
human companionships are precarious ; but the writ-
ten life which we have devoured and to which we
return with fresh and eager hunger and thirst, is
divorced not even from our waking or sleeping
dreams. It is clasped to the breast of passion, and
steeped in the dews of revery, and adorned with the
flowers of fancy until it becomes an integral part of
our very selves. It is thus, very often, in the closest
and most unselfish sense, that biography is a source
and inspiration of virtue.

For that other, but still very respectable and very
popular, class of virtues which have their origin in
the consideration of what others will say of us, biog-
raphy is simply the all-powerful and fruitful mother.

INTB OB TIC TOE Y. 13

Take a man whose social or official position guaran-
tees the belief that some one will be found to write
his life, and he is always posing for the future picture
in which, as he fondly hopes, other and admiring
generations will gaze upon his features and attributes.
At home, abroad, in the pulpit or rostrum, on the
street, there is an all-apparent consciousness that he
is being observed and will be reported ; that he is sit-
ting, standing or speaking for his picture. Of course,
this is very ridiculous ; but he does not see himself
from the angle of incongruity, and smile as we will,
he does not blush. And when we remember how
much of selfish gratification he foregoes, and how
really helpful is the ostentatious generosity which he
exhibits, contemn as we may the motive, the conduct
commands our respect.

In fact, the most attractive of all the rewards of
virtue, and the most dreadful of all the punishments
of crime, which human ingenuity has been able to
devise, lie in the magic words, FAME AND IN-
FAMY Even Heaven would lose half its charms
for the mass of humanity, if our future vindication
and triumph, in that blissful sphere, were to be
known to none but ourselves ; and Hell might be
less intolerable, if our defeat and torture could be
endured in secresy.

In the highest and holiest of all the literary pro-
ducts of the world — the Bible — of what compara-
tive practical effect would be its precepts, if sepa-
rated from its story? And it is not merely that

14 INTBODUCTOBY.

the narrative authenticates the precept, though this
is of course true ; for God's utterances must wear
their own Divine stamp, however isolated from hu-
man lips and lives ; but would not such isolation
deprive them of a large proportion of their popu-
lar power? How much weight should we attach to
the moral and positive sayings of Moses, apart from
those wondrous relations which awe and thrill us in
his life? And the Sermon on the Mount, and all
the other grand and beautiful utterances of Christ,
let them reach us from some unknown source, cut
off from the matchless life and tragic death of the
gentle and majestic Person whom we love and ven-
erate as the Saviour of the world, and is it not easy
to see that their moving, healing and hallowing
power would be much abated if not entirely lost?
It would seem that He who gave us the revelation
of Himself knew well that, in order to reach and
save us, even with the knowledge of the truth, it
was needful that the message should come to us
through lips and lives that we could admire and
love.

And so, in later times, it is not so much the
thought or speech, as the man who thinks and
speaks, that moves the world. It was Luther's
temper, as well as his teachings, that wrought the
Reformation. It was Wesley *s character, as well
as his doctrines, that established Methodism in the
world. What these Protestant heroes taught and
said had been uttered long before they lived ; but

INTR OD UC TOR Y. 15

it remained for them to apply to a long-laid train
the fire of their personal earnestness and courage,
in order to light the world to a higher and better
life. This they did ; and their manner of doing
it — their relation to the scene and the hour — are all
that constitute the real storv of their lives. And
if their biographers would give us this, and no
more, neither we nor the world would ever weary
of the tale.

But this is precisely what they can not be induced
to do. It would seem as if every one who pro-
poses to write the life of another enters, at once,
upon enchanted ground, and is instantaneously pos-
sessed by a demon of unprofitable scribbling — a sort
of cacoethes scribendi — that gives him no rest until he
has exhausted the resources of twaddle. Person-
alities, the common properties of men, are accumu-
lated ad nauseam. Nay, the strain is not always so
elevated as to reach the common attributes of hu-
manity Mere animal autonomisms are strung out
in page after page of dry and never-ending diary .
To-day the hero rose, ate, journeyed, rested, went
on again, and finally stopped for the night in some
particular locality The next day he did the same
things at other places and on different roads. Anon,
he becomes even human — makes a toilet, reads,
writes, converses — gives evidence of common sense
and reason. Then he receives visitors, and these
are named and enumerated, or he goes to visit
others, and we are furnished with a particular de-

16 INTE ODUC TOE Y.

scrip tion of roads, distances, residences, and some-
times even the genealogy of the happy family that
has the good fortune to entertain him. And all this
on the principle that

" 'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's self in print;
A book's a book, altho' there's nothing in 't."

The reasoning is transparent. If a sufficient num-
ber of persons can be sufficiently nattered by the
author, they will buy the book and read it, or at
least that portion of it in which their own names
appear in a halo of intimacy with the hero. The
author of such a book resembles those enterpris-
ing publishers who have recently astonished our
local world with a fashionable Directory, thus bank-
ing, perhaps not insecurely, on the well-known
vanity of human nature. But, with the biographer,
such an enterprise can prove a success only when
the proportions of his hero are so extraordinary as
to have attracted a world-wide attention to his name,
and thus rendered interesting even the petty details
of his daily life ; and. in that case the artifice is need-
less. The vast majority of men whose lives are
written are not sufficiently eminent to render their
occasional and accidental association with us a flat-
tery so exquisite that we are willing to pay for it
even the moderate price of a crown-octavo volume.
Thus the author loses his labor, the result is a dead
edition, the shelves groan with a new burden of
rubbish, and the publisher becomes one of those
"burnt children" who preserve a salutary dread of

INTRODUCTORY. 17

all future biographical fires. God forbid that we
should blight, with such a book, the name and mem-
ory of our lamented Marvin. Not thus would we
write the memoir of his noble life. We would show
him rather as he was, in his relation to his Church
and his time, that the lesson of his life may speak
to us and to our children with more persuasive
eloquence than ever tired those lips now silent in
the grave.

$to*pt*« $tttm&.

HEREDITY

THE modern apostles of this doctrine claim for
it two things : first, that it is new — an original
discovery of our later times ; and secondly, that it
diminishes, if it does not destroy, individual re-
sponsibility. If we are not greatly mistaken, they
will be found at fault in both these assumptions.
For its age, it is as old as the Bible. " I, the Lord,
thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities
of the fathers upon the children, to the third and
fourth generations," is a Scriptural text which has
been a target for the shafts of infidelity in every
age. "How," says the objector, "can jealousy,
one of the most selfish of passions, be predicated
of the All-Good, All-Great and All-Wise? Does
not this clearly show that the author of this text
was a rude barbarian, who clothed with his own lit-
tleness the God whom he professed to reveal ? And
this imbecility has been palmed upon the world as
the direct inspiration of the Almighty !" But, dear
critical skeptic ! what is all this, to which you so
violently object, but a transparently figurative an-

HEREDITY. 19

nouncement of those permanent and unchangeable
laws which it is your habit to deify, and a distinct
promulgation of that doctrine of hereditary and
ante-natal influence, about which vou are accus-
tomed so eloquently to prate? Jealousy, when
predicated of the Supreme Ruler of the universe,
translates itself, by all the rules of just criticism,
into that steady, rigid and inflexible adherence to
order and harmony, which decrees that every causal
influence shall work its legitimate result, unhindered
by conflicting interests and passions. And this
grand quality of the God of the Bible the thought-
less rationalist has sought to abstract and deify by
itself!

And for the other part of the text, the " visiting
of the sins of the fathers upon the children," which
the rationalist denounces as a most foul injustice,
when we set it side-by-side with its plainly implied
correlative, that "the virtues of the parents de-
scend equally to the children," and when we extend
the typical words, "third and fourth generation,"
to imply and include, as they reasonably do, the
countless descendants of men, we shall see that it
would be difficult for modern science to formulate
one of its own favorite dogmas as briefly or as
well.

But it behooves us, as a Methodist writer, to be
careful of man's moral agency ; one of the cardinal
doctrines of our theology, which is here supposed to
be threatened with a total eclipse. If the virtues and

20 HEBEDITY.

vices of parents descend to their children, how, it
is asked, can the children be responsible for their
own conduct? With their inherited tendencies to
piety or impiety, are they not the helpless subjects
of ante-natal influence? But this conclusion, spe-
cious as it appears, is an obvious non-sequitur It
is affirmed by the theory, and must be conceded by
reason, that, of perfectly holy beings, only perfectly
holy beings could be born, and that procreating
demons could produce only their kind. But aver-
age fathers and mothers are neither angels nor de-
mons, but a mixture, in different proportions, of
good and bad. It ought not to be affirmed by this
theory of heredity, and certainly cannot be con-
ceded if it were affirmed, that children can be either
better or worse by virtue of ante-natal influence than
those from whom they sprang. The question, there-
fore, is hardly practical, and our Methodist doctrine
of moral agency remains undisturbed.

With these obvious restrictions, which have their
foundation in common sense and experience, and
which can therefore never be disturbed, we see no
reason why the claims of heredity should not be
freely conceded, and we can see some reasons why
they should be cordially accepted by all good men.
One reason, very simple but very cogent, is the sim-
ple fact that the existence of hereditary traits of
character is quite as much a matter of common ob-
servation as of facial and other physical resemblances ;
and we do not like, particularly well, to theorize
against a stubborn and all-apparent fact.

HEREDITY. 21

Another reason is, that — the above restrictions
being always understood — we can not sec that any
moral evil, and we do see that much moral ^ good,
may come from the doctrine The heritable right
of our children in the pecuniary accumulations of
our industry is felt to be a great and precious privi-
lege. No other support so strongly upholds the en-
ergy and enterprise of men. From our present
stand-point it is easy to see that the total abolition
of all the laws of inheritance would wreck society ;
so that this apparent outgrowth of our civilization
upholds the soil from which it sprang. And why
should not this work of Providence be duplicated
in the moral, pathematic and intellectual world?
Once let men thoroughly believe that they are in-
vested with the power to transmit their mental traits
to their offspring ; let them confide in it only as
thoroughly as they do in the administrative fidelity
of those civil laws to which they entrust the division
and conservation of their property : and have we not
furnished them with most powerful incentives to
spiritual industry and thrift? But let them know
that this is not merely a precarious privilege but an
inevitable destinv ; that thev are bound to this trans-
mission by an irrefragable law : and do we not apply
the very highest stimulus to the noblest faculties of
their nature ? And is the world so rich in Christian
virtue, that it can afford to contemn and banish this
able auxiliary ? For one, we say, let him come — this
dreaded Heredity — and do his mightiest to convince

22 HEBEDITY.

men of the immortality of their virtues and vices.
Though " he followeth not with us," yet because he
casteth out devils in the name of Christ, we bid him
welcome to the work of Christ.

In an English port, in the year 1635, only fifteen
years after the landing of the Pilgrims, another com-
pany of persecuted Puritans, allured by the repre-
sentations of their pioneers in the new world, and
fleeing from ecclesiastical proscription in the old, trod
the gangway and crowded the decks of the good ship
Increase, Robert Lea, Master, and watched, with sad
hearts, but wrapt and inspired faces, the shores of
home sink in the Eastern sea, and turned to the
widening waste of waters in the West, beyond whose
threatening waves lay the land of their new-born
hopes. Side-by-side, in that solemn company, stood
Remold Marvin and Richard Mather In their time,
and among their peers, they were noteworthy men.
High, stern, austere, and clad with that mantle of si-
lence and reserve which is so impressive among all
the habiliments of the soul, they were the acknowl-
edged chieftains of their little band. They had long
known and loved each other in that quiet, undemon-
strative way which is the characteristic of English-
men among men, and of Puritans among Englishmen.
Bound together by a common faith, a broth-
erhood of peril, and linked in the grand adventure
upon whose issue they had cast their all, the ties be-
tween them were of no ordinary tenderness and po-
tency.

HEBEDITY. 23

Mather was a non-conformist minister, distin-
guished by uncommon zeal and ability and by the
best as well as the worst qualities of that much-
persecuted class. And when we say he had the
worst qualities of his order, we must be understood
to refer only to such as are consistent with the most
exalted sincerity Believing himself a chosen vessel
of the Lord, and under the immediate inspiration of
Heaven, he had no patience with anybody who with-
stood his will or controverted his opinions. He was
bigoted and cruel. Having been persecuted, he
naturally became a persecutor But no words could
exaggerate the high and devoted loyalty of his at-
tachment to those who saw with his eyes and shared
his lot. And this was the tie which bound him to
his friend.

Marvin was of a higher and larger type. Though
no preacher, he was one of those powers behind the
pulpit which are often greater than the pulpit. He
saw the preacher's duty as well as his own, and
kept him up to the work. Wo to the laggard shep-
herd who halted or grew weary in the care and
instruction of the flock. To sustain the preacher
in his work, his purse, his home; his heart, his
hand, would to the extent of their ability honor
every draft that courage and devotion could present.
He knew the tenets of the Puritans as well as their
ministers did, and held them, if possible, more rig-
idly Something of his temper may be inferred
from that passage in his will in which he directs

24 HEBEDITY.

that to each of his grandchildren "there be pro-
vided and given a Bible as soon as they are capable
of using them." If he could have believed in its
validity, no doubt the stern old Puritan would have
sent the bequest on down through the ages to the
remotest scion of his race.

Such were the two men who, unwitting of the
future, paced the spray-damp decks of the "Good
Ship Increase," and held high converse of the mys-
teries of Providence and grace. When we know
that their lines were subsequently united in the per-
sons of Elisha Marvin and Catherine Mather, their
great-grandchildren, we can not help, wondering if
some antecedent thrill of coming kinship did not
cross the chasm of a hundred years and melt to
warmer tenderness the hearts of those grave men
who looked so lovingly into each other's eyes

That was a happy marriage, and pregnant with
great issues, though the echoes of its joy-bells have
saddened to the monody which so lately tolled
around the world the knell of departed Goodness
and Greatness. The official records of the Marvin
line fail us here, as it was but reasonable to expect
they would : they keep the quiet of their ancestral
way ; but the Mathers, like their progenitor, are all
in the public eye. Increase, the son of Eichard,
was for sixty-two years pastor of the old North
Church, in Boston, was president of Harvard Col-
lege, spent sixteen hours a day in his* study, and
published ninety-two separate works. Cotton Ma-

HEREDITY. 2f>

ther, his son, was still more celebrated. He entered
Harvard College at twelve years of age, and was
even then as much distinguished for piety as remark-
able for precocity He became his father's colleague
in the ministry, wrote in favor of the political ascen-
dency of the clergy and against witchcraft, eagerly
advocating the adoption of desperate remedies for
the diabolical disease. He was still more indus-
trious than his father, having written, at the close
of his life, three hundred and eighty-two works.

Thence on, the downward line of Marvin is dis-
tinct, though not distinguished. Enoch, the son of
Elisha, was born in 1747 He married Ruth Ely,
and removed to Berkshire, Massachusetts, where
his son, "Wells Elv, was born. In 1817 he came to
Missouri with his son, and died in 1841. And here
the strain takes on new blood, as it would seem,
with good effect Wells Ely was the father of the
Bishop, but his mother was the descendant of Welch
ancestors. Of these, in Warren County, Missouri,
June 12, 1823, was born the subject of the present
memoir, Enoch Mather Marvin.

^tiairtev Wkxx&.

BOYHOOD.

TWO and a half miles southwest of the present
town of Wright City, on Barrett's Creek, in a
double cabin, of unhewn logs covered with boards,
held in their places by weight poles, young Marvin
first drew breath. His natal mansion is worthy ot a
particular discription. It was, as has been said, a
double log cabin ; i.e. it consisted of two square
pens, constructed by laying logs transversely across
others, till the requisite height of an ordinary room
was attained. Then, the pens being separated by a
space large enough for a hall, or passage, long top-
logs called plates, extending from end to end of the
two pens, were placed on both sides, and from these
rose the rafter-poles which sustained the roof. This
roof was composed of what, by an extreme courtesy
which would astonish one accustomed only to the
present forms of lumber, were called "clap-boards."
But not such as "Webster's Unabridged" defines,
as they were riven and wholly of equal thickness at
both ends rather than being thicker at one end than
at the other, as the aforesaid "Unabridged" would

BOYHOOD. 27

have us believe These boards — there being no saw-
mills convenient, or the settlers being unable to pro-
vide a more expensive product — were obtained in the
following manner : The prospective builder went to
the forest and selected what is called a good board-
tree. By this was meant a tree of such fibre as
would be split easily, evenly and uniformly The
material selected was generally some variety of oak.
The tree chosen was felled and, by means of a cross-
cut saw, divided into lengths of from three to four
feet. These blocks were next split into slabs of a
nearly uniform thickness. And then by the use of a
froe or frow, were riven into boards of about half an
inch in thickness, or thicker if the timber were bad.
The gables of a true log cabin were also constructed
of logs, each one " above the square " being three or
four feet shorter than the one next below, and on
each was laid " lengthway " of the house two bearing
poles, one on each side to sustain the boards. This
was continued, shortening each log to give the roof
its "pitch," until it came to the last or topmost log
or pole, called the "ridge-pole." A course or layer
of boards was then placed with the ends resting on
the first and second bearing poles, then on or near the
upper end of the course was placed a weight-pole,
to keep the boards in that layer firm in their places,
and against which also rested the lower ends of the
boards in the second course or layer, and so on until
the roof was completed. The house needed then
only to be "chinked" and daubed, floored, and

28 BOYHOOD.

chimneyed, doored and shuttered. The chinking
was done by placing blocks in the open space be-
tween the logs then plastered over with moistened
clay, thus filling the interstices, the blocks having
been carefully fastened in their places. The doors
and windows were constructed by sawing out sections
from the log walls wherever a door or window might
be desired, and these openings were then protected
by rude shutters, often hung on wooden hinges.
The flooring was done by laying down puncheons, or
the trunks of small trees, cut to the proper length
and split in halves, with the flat side uppermost ;
and the chimneys, on the model of the house, built
of sticks, cemented and plastered with mud, so as
to be impervious tojire. Such was the character of
the house on Barrett's Creek, and in which our hero
first saw the light. There he listened to his mother's
lullaby, and was shaken, in infancy, into that phys-
ical hardihood which subsequently braced and sus-
tained the fiery energies of his spirit.

Later, with increasing wealth, his father built a
house of hewn logs, with a ceiling, and so high as to
afford a loft or garret, which was used as a chamber
for the boys, and was entered by a ladder from the
outside. There they were lulled to sleep by the
patter of the rain upon the roof, and waked by the
matin-songs of birds. None of the clandestine
night excursions familiar to bad boys whose parents
believe them to be sleeping quietly in their beds,
were practiced here, as the paternal guardian had

BOYHOOD. 29

but to remove the ladder after his sons had retired
and they were prisoners until morning.

Here, Marvin spent his boyhood ; and there was
much, even then, to the discerning eye, which sepa-
rated and marked him from his fellows. He h;ul
mental movings beyond his years, and which some
men never attain with any number of years. It is
not meant that he was not like other boys in his sports
and employments. He took kindly to every aspect
of the life which God and nature gave him. He was
cheerful, ready, affectionate, kind. He zealously
rode the horses to water, fed and cared for the pigs
and chickens, and brought home the cows at milking
time. When too young to hold the plow, he could
ride the horse that drew it, or he dropped the corn
which his father covered with the hoe. But in this
he was often silent, intent, wrapped in meditation,
and had what some called " a far-away look in his
eyes."

He was fond of all the rude and active sports of
boyhood, and excelled in fleetness of foot. He
hunted and fished with the foremost. He trapped
the rabbits in winter and limed the birds in sum-
mer, His whoop and halloo rang from hill-top and
valley He wrestled and ran with the bravest,
laughed with the merriest, and talked and jested on
equal terms with the wittiest and most humorous.
But all this was done in a manner peculiarly his
own. It was as if he had but entered a field of
exercise, where he sported with light weapons in

30 BOYHOOD.

order to discipline and develop his powers for some
serious task. From the very height of mirthfulness
or strife his pale, mobile face resumed, with start-
ling suddenness, its habitual expression of mingled
intentness and repose.

For schooling, young Marvin was mainly depend-
ent upon the instruction of his mother, who taught
him, along with the neighbors' boys, to the extent
of her educational acquirements. To this teaching,
sweetened as it was by the glance and voice of ma-
ternal tenderness, he inclined a willing ear, and
when the fount was dry, he still thirsted eagerly for
more. The only school within his reach was the
one taught by his mother. Her terms were so mod-
erate, and her accomplishments comparatively so
great, that no competing institution of learning
lived in that neighborhood. Those who paid her at
all for the education of their children, and they were
a large majority of her patrons, gave her perhaps a
dollar or less a month for each scholar, deducting
all lost time ; and this sum, often paid her in pro-
duce. It will be readily seen that Mrs. Marvin,
though she helped her husband in this way, did not
speedily enrich either him or her children.

After exhausting this inadequate source of knowl-
edge, the boy turned eagerly to whatever reading-
matter came within his reach. Perhaps it was on
the whole fortunate the supply was limited. Had
he possessed the facilities afforded by our later pub-
lic libraries, there is no knowing what would have

BOYHOOD. 31

become of him. He might have been drowned in
the sea of Fiction, or lost in some slough of Impu-
rity As it was, there was no other danger of
intellectual or moral disaster than that which arose
out of the poverty of supply and the consequent
liability to mental inanition. This was partially
avoided by reading the same books again and again,
until he had completely mastered their contents.
He was thus able to follow, unconsciously, the
advice of one of the great masters of modern
thought — "Read much but not many " He may
have found a little history, a little biography, a little
science, and occasionally a stray volume of some
old classic These he would devour and master, until
they became part of the permanent furniture of his
mind. He was able to use them, on all occasions,
as readily and freely as if they had been a part of
the original constituents of his brain. This chapter
in his history may answer the inquiry as to where
and how "he picked up his learning."

He had another habit, common, we believe, to
minds of a high order and which, at the same time,
are gifted with a very strong talent for expression,
to-wit : the custom of frequent and lonely impro-
visation. With childish facility of metre, he could
lie on his back for hours, in the depths of the silent
woods, crooning to himself, in melodious monotone,
the musings of his heart. And, the passion and
power of expression growing with this exercise, it
would soon come to pass that he would stand upon

32 BOYHOOD.

his feet and, in default of other and better audience,
pour out to the silent trees around him the torrent
of his burning thoughts. Then, gathering confi-
dence from the sound of his own voice and the even
and consecutive flow of the periods of his speech,
he would feel the impulse to address others. Long
he might have been held silent by timidity and em-
barrassment. Under favorable circumstances he
would often gather his playmates around him,
mount a stump or log, and astonish them with a
speech.

But this did not satisfy the aspiring boy. He
sighed for a wider field and a larger audience than
the circle of his playmates. He had heard of de-
bating societies, and he resolved to form one. The
difficulties were great. He could not appear openly
in the matter — he was too young. What he had to
do was, cautiously and skilfully to suggest the sub-
ject to others, who were older and more influential,
that they would accomplish it as on their own mo-
tion. In this he succeeded. The society was
organized, a debate announced, and young Marvin
was first an auditor and afterward a speaker In
an incredibly short space of time he was the unri-
valled master of the society The country-side
turned out to hear Old and young men and
women hung on his lips, or burst into wild and
unrestrained applause, at some happy and unexpect-
ed turn of his sparkling thought. The hoarded
treasures of his daily musings and his nightly

BOYHOOD. 33

dreams came glowing forth before the dazzled eyes
of his neighbors and friends. It must have been a
wonderful spectacle. The rude log-house, dim with
the tallow-dip or lurid with the fitful flame of the
resinous torch ; the crowded scats ; the strained
attitude of silence and the look of eager expectation
on every face ; and in the midst of all that slight,
childish form with its pale, sad face and flashing
eye and ringing voice, disputing with others the
prize of reason and eloquence, and often bearing it
awav from them all.

Of Marvin's afl'ectional relations with his father,
little or nothing is known to us. In an intimate as-
sociation of many years we rarely heard him men-
tion that father s name ; and, on the motive of so
great a silence, we cannot hazard any conjecture.

But the sheet-anchor of the boy's tenderness was
his mother. Of her he spoke willingly, cheerfullv,
gratefully and piously to the last She was his
counselor, his friend, his confident. The first dis-
tinct recollection of his life, as he has repeatedly
said, was that of sitting on hei* knee and hearing

her sing,

" Alas! and did my Savior bleed?"

while the tears rolled down her cheeks and fell upon
his upturned faee% By her wise and gentle instruc-
tions she hastened the dawn of moral consciousness
in his soul, and was tenderly careful to point him to
the Sun of Righteousness, from whom, as she taught
him, that dawning came. She lifted him to the

34 BOYHOOD.

heights of veneration, brightened his intelligence
itiid refined his heart. He carried to her all his joys
and sorrows, and she gave him an equally tender
sympathy for both. She was the only one who thor-
oughly understood him, and to her he revealed him-
self unconsciously and without reserve. In a sense
wonderfully unique, and depending for its interpre-
tation upon the peculiar mental constitution of this
boy, she was in one sense his only friend. He trusted
her as he trusted no one else ; and he confided in her
without reserve, because he felt that his reserve was
powerless against her tender discernment.

He had other friends, and not a few He was
popular in his neighborhood, and with all his ac-
quaintances. His geniality, his wit and his talents
drew around him an admiring circle. To these he
gave a warmth of demonstrativeness proportioned,
in each case, to the appreciating power of the indi-
vidual. To those who gave much love, he gave
much in return ; and to those who gave little, he re-
turned no more. This quality came, no doubt, from
the old Mather blood, of which, as we advance, we
shall see that he had a fervid strain.

As a boy, he was intensely emulous, not to say
ambitious. This could not be otherwise. With his
ardent imagination, in which, as in a glass, he saw
fair pictures of his future ; with his glowing fancy,
which ante -dated that future and brought all its srlo-
ries within the grasp of the present ; with his talents,
of which he could not but be conscious, which ffuar-

BOYHOOD. 85

anteed his overpassing competitors in the race of
life, and which demanded a field of action commen-
surate with their vigor and brilliancy ; with all these,
if he had not been emulous, it would have argued
some capital defect in the proportions or relations of
his powers. This defect did not exist and, to use a
thread-bare simile, he was us emulous as Julius Cie-
sar, and as brave as the same great prototype of
these qualities. If life held no prize to which he
might not aspire, it contained no Rubicon which he
dared not cross.

But while dreaming thus of the conquest of the
world, it occurred to him to begin the work by
setting himself right with the world's acknowledged
Ruler He would enlist under his banner. If he
was afraid of nothing else, he was undeniably afraid
of God. He would *« take hold of his strengh," so
that the arm of the Almighty should not hurt him
when it fell. He would join His Church and give
his name and his influence to the Christian cause.
Thenceafter he might profitably and safely pursue the
great work of his life. And so it came to pass that,
in August, 1839, when sixteen years of age, in the
heat of the dying summer, under no revival influ-
ence, and moved only by his own reflections, Enoch
Mather Marvin became a member of the M. E.
Church.

(toptM Jflttttto*

HE JOINED THE CHUKCH.

H

E Joined the Church." — Many have done
so. They are doing so daily ; but what of
it? This : First, every one that does so becomes a
help or hindrance to the Church. He facilitates or
retards its progress ; he helps to make it better or he
makes it worse, and it is amazing how many join the
Church for what it will do for them rather than what
they can do for it ; consequently they remain com-
paratively inactive, waiting and waiting to see where-
in it will benefit them, and seeming never to inquire
in wThat or how they can help it. They lose their
individuality, sink themselves in the mass, and float
along as the current of popular feeling may chance
to direct. Thev are hot or cold, zealous or incliffer-
ent, active or indolent, just as those around them
may happen to be, and almost always estimate the
religious status of the Church by their own feelings,
and judge of what they ought to do by what others
are doing. Positively, they do little or no harm ;
negatively, they are clogs, impediments, dead- weights
and actual hindrances to the Church's progress.

HE JOINED THE CHUSCB. 87

Not unfrequently they are hyper-sensitive — the
preacher must never pass without stopping, other
members must cuddle, caress, and give them special
attention, or they are hurt ; and for that reason they
sometimes go from one Church or one denomination
to another, that they may receive more attention —
be more noticed, as (hough the Church were a mere
social organization, designed to elevate the low or
lower the high, and place all on the same social level ;
and thus, so far as the real object of Church or-
ganization is concerned, they are weights, incum-
brances, nuisances. Much of the time and labor of
the pastor and better class of members has to be
spent in keeping them quiet — soothing their fretful-
ness and meeting their exacting*. They seem never
to think they are as much bound to work for and
help forward the interests of the Church as are any
others. They are never to minister, but always to
be ministered to ; consequently a large share of the
spiritual power of the Church instead of aggressively
pushing forward the general interests, has to be ex-
pended on them, and by just so much as this is done
the general advancement and prosperity are im-
peded.

In view of this fact, it is deemed proper, trite and
common though the subject may be, to call attention
to the individual obligations assumed by all whq
connect themselves with the Church, and which ob-
ligations they solemnly promise to fulfill. The
matter is important, and deserves very serious con-

38 HE JOINED THE CHURCH.

sicleration, not only by those who may contemplate
uniting with the Church, but bv those who have al-
ready done so as well.

Every one who, after due consideration and care-
ful examination, connects himself with the M. E.
Church, South, solemnly promises to " renounce the
devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of
the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and
the carnal desires of the flesh, so that he will not fol-
low or be led by them." He also solemnly declares
his firm belief " in God the Father Almighty, maker
of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only be-
gotten Son, our Lord, and that he was conceived by
the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried ;
that he rose again the third day ; that he ascended
into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the
Father Almighty, and from thence shall come again
at the end of the world to judge the quick [or liv-
ing] and the dead."

Also declares his belief " in the Holy Ghost, the
Church of God, the communion of saints, the re-
mission of sins, the resurrection of the body, and
everlasting life after death;" and then most rever-
ently and solemnly promises to endeavor obediently
to keep God's holy commandments, and walk in the
same all the days of his life.

This is the baptismal covenant, and if the appli-
cant for membership has been baptized in infancy, he
then at the time of his admission solemnly ratifies

HE JOINED 1HE CHURCH. 39

and confirms the promise and vow of repentance,
faith and obedience contained in this covenant, and
further promises «* to be subject to the Discipline of
the Church, attend upon its ordinances, and support
its institutions."

These are the professions of faith, the vows and
promises made by him who connects himself with
the Church, after he has been examined bv the min-
ister in charge, his spiritual condition inquired into,
and satisfactory assurances given of his desire to be
saved from his sins — the genuineness of his faith,
and willingness to keep the rules of the Church. If
this examination by the minister, which is precedent
to the reception, be made faithful and thorough,
then there is small chance for improper persons to
insinuate themselves in the Church. But if the min-
ister be incompetent — fail to appreciate the import-
ance of the work — or be negligent or hasty and par-
tial, or if, because the applicant is rich or influential,
or great in the world' s estimation, perhaps in his
own also, the examination is passed over smoothly,
lightly and easily, no one will be at a loss to per-
ceive what evils may follow This is the beginning
point, and it is the important point. Care and pains
taken, and judicious labor bestowed right here may,
and often do save a vast deal of trouble and scandal
to the Church afterwards. Begin right, and then to
continue so is comparatively easy Begin wrong,
and subsequent correction is always difficult, some-
times almost impossible.

40 HE JOINED THE CHUECH.

But, supposing the examination to have been
properly made, the result entirely satisfactory, the
vows taken, and the connection with the Church
perfected, then we may properly inquire what it is
he has done. . The inquiry here, is made upon the
supposition that he, so connecting himself with the
Church, had a clear understanding of the matter in
advance of his action, and we rehearse it for the
purpose of refreshing the memory of those who are
members of the Church, as well as to afford infor-
mation to such as may think of becoming such.

First, then — He has renounced, that is, forsaken,
cast off, rejected, disclaimed, refused to own or
acknowledge any allegiance or obligation to the
devil and all his works, or the vain pomp and glory
of the world, or covetous desires of the same, or
the carnal desires of the flesh. He has rejected,
cast off, all, and in the most solemn and public man-
ner declared he will not follow or be led by them.
Now is he a truthful man, is he an honest man,
meaning what he says ? Then he ma}^ be expected
ever after this to count the things he has renounced
as his enemies. He has openly declared war against
them, will fight them to the end, and, however
feeble his stragglings may be, he will never }deld.
On the contrary, he will constantly endeavor to
obediently keep God's holy commandments, to fol-
low the teachings of His word, in all things, at all
times, in all places, and under all circumstances.
Accepting that word as " a light to his path, and a

HE JOINED THE CHURCH. 41

lamp to his feet" — not walking in his own ways,
nor finding his own pleasure, but subordinating all
things else to the divine will, and seeking first, be-
fore and above all else, "the kingdom of God and
his righteousness."

How broad, how deep, how high, how compre-
hensive, yet how exclusive is the nature of these
promises and vows ! Uncompromisingly excluding
everything that is wrong in thought or feeling, or
word or act, and including everything that is "right,
even from the least to the greatest. Still there are
those who have complained and do complain that
the Church is too lenient in the reception of mem-
bers, and receives unconverted persons. That de-
pends upon what is meant by conversion. It re-
quires only a moderate attention to the terminology
of different sects to satisfy any observant mind that
different denominations attach different meanings to
that word, and use it with different acceptations.
To point out those different meanings is not an
object in this writing. It may be sufficient simply
to state, that whoever has in his heart a sincere
desire "to flee the wrath to come, be saved from
his sins," and can sincerely take upon him the
vows, and make the declarations and promises re-
ferred to, is one in whose heart a work of grace has
been begun. Few or none will deny this. Call it
what you will — awakening or conviction, as some
have done, conversion as others have termed it, or
regeneration as it has been called by still others — no

42 HE JOINED THE CHURCH.

matter — the fact remains, a work of divine grace
has been begun ; and what should the individual do
but become a co-worker, that he receive not that
grace in vain, but work out his salvation with fear
and trembling, while God worketh in him both to
do, according to his (God's) good pleasure?

All will agree this is the course to be pursued.
Then the question arises, can the person concerned
better do this in or out of the Church? A correct
answer to this will determine the whole matter.
Can he better carry on that work among unbelievers
than among believers? The Spirit of all grace is
working within him, and he is trying to follow the
leadings of that Spirit. Under such circumstances
is it proper, and likely always to be beneficial for
such an one to associate, at least occasionally, with
those who have had like experiences, and who,
therefore, can instruct and assist him ; and if occa-
sionally, why not constantly? It does seem as if
there should be but one opinion among Christians
on this subject ; nor would there be any diversity
if all would properly and precisely define their
term's, and each tell exactly in what way or sense
they were used.

Such are the method and conditions of joining the
Church now ; but a somewhat different plan was pur-
sued in young Marvin's day Then people joined
the Church on probation, as it was called — i. e., on
six months trial whether they would like the Church
and whether the church would like them. The cere-

HE JOINED THE CHUBCH. 48

mony was very simple, and consisted only of giving
the preacher one's hand and name in the public con-
gregation. If either party grew tired of the com-
pact, it might be cancelled by either without even
the formality of the other's consents The proba-
tioner declined to be received at the close of his
term, or the Church erased his name. If, however,
both wished to confirm it, there was a public and
formal reception of the candidate into the Church,
and he assumed all that we have above set forth, and
possessed all the rights and privileges of full mem-
bership.

The effect of this step upon the mind of young
Marvin surprised himself. He was like one suddenly
awaked in a strange place. He found himself in the
midst of new and solemn relations. The close
and intimate association with fervent Christians ;
the intense devotion of the prayer-meetings ; the
thrilling narratives of individual experience in the
class-room ; the preacher's stirring and strongly per-
sonal appeals ; the songs of triumph and the shouts
of ecstasy, which characterized nearly every Metho-
dist assemblage in that day ; all appealed at once to
his imagination, his understanding, his conscience
and his heart. This wonderful contagion of pas-
sionate piety, might it not yet conquer the world ?
and would not the world be in every sense the better
and the happier for such a subjugation ? Here opened
an enterprise of spiritual adventure which kindled
the ardor of the youthful knight. And what was

44 HE JOINED THE CHUBGH.

more reasonable, than the loyal and affectionate de-
votion of redeemed souls to Him who had rescued
them from death and hell by his own blood ? Ought
not he, as well as others, since he shared with them
in the benefits of the Saviour's sufferings and death,
to be at once grateful and good, and to emulate their
fervid devotion to the Captain of their salvation?
Should he look tamely on while others, no more
deeply indebted than himself, bore the offering of
their hearts and lives to the Master's altar? For
many months these thoughts and feelings kept wild
riot in his soul. He has furnished us with one picture
of his mental strivings at this time, on which it may
be instructive for all to look. He says :

"Soon after I had united with the Church I had
an experience I am sure I can never forget. I was
in the saddle, on the Lord's day, on my way to a
social meeting in the country The aspects of the
autumn scenery are as distinct in my memory as if it
had been only yesterday ; the warm sun lay upon the
mottled foliage, and there seemed the hush of a hal-
lowed peace upon the face of nature. All at once
the thought came to me — 'I am in the Church, and
it is in my power now, by my unholy living, to bring
a blot on the Church, and to dishonor the Saviour.'
For a time the reflection seemed insupportable ; it
was almost more than I could bear."

It will be seen from this how soon and how pow-
erfully the Church cast her restraining influence upon
the young man who, led by the hand of Maternal

HE JOINED TEE CHURCH. 45

Love, had come to the altar of the church. The hand
of God was upon him, and its painful weight seemed
unendurable. Appetite and sleep departed from him.
He had not known before that he was guilty — that
he was in danger — that he was under sentence of
eternal doom. To be sure lie had supposed, from
his early religious instruction, that in a general way
and in common with all others, he shared in a kind
of hereditary depravity ; but this was all. And now,
ho felt that he was as the chief of sinners, and shud-
dered under the sense of au infinite and Divine wrath.
The heavens seemed brass above him, and the earth
iron beneath him.

His moods were variable. Sometimes, full of rest-
less anguish and fiery conflict, he wandered in the
woods and fields hour after hour seeking^ by the
mere force of physical exhaustion, to lull the pain of
his breast. At other times, for days together, he
was wrapped in a sombre mantle of despondency and
shunned the light of day and dreaded the warmth of
home. Anon, he broke into wild and fitful gleams
of mirth and jollity He was the life of every com-
pany ; he set the table in a roar, and his chamber
companions could not sleep for his laughter-compel-
ling jests. He had a horror of solitude and sought
to resist and overthrow the despotism of his own
thoughts. Then devotion supervened. He would
have it out in a struggle with the Almighty He
would wrestle with the Angel and prevail. And so
he spent long hours in earnest, solemn but unavail-

46 HE JOINED THE CHUBCH.

ing prayer. He wished to bring God to his terms —
to secure the Almighty for his helper and coadjutor
in the strife of personal emulation ; but he had not,
as yet, fully resolved to yield to God's terms, and
devote his all to the service of Christ.

At last, sixteen months after joining the Church,
in December, 1840, he grew weary of the conflict
and reckless of all consequences he said, in the
depths of his spiritual submission : "I will be any-
thing and do anything that God shall ordain. Let
him show me his will and I will execute it. I give
my whole heart — I will and do accept Christ on His
own terms — and accept him now " And then went
up to the gates of Heaven the news : " The dead's
alive ! the lost is found !" and Enoch Mather Marvin
was converted to God.

Chapter <£im.

HE WAS CONVERTED.

€i T T E was converted." — Other denominations
X X sometimes use other phrases, such us " Con-
fessed Christ," "experienced a hope," *« accepted
the Savior," k' professed faith in Christ," etc., but,
as a general thing, they all mean substantially the
same thing. But what is it they do mean ? Is the
public mind, or the mind of the Church clear on this
point? Is there no confounding of terms, no put-
ting one thing for another, no using of terms inter-
changeably, when those terms do not mean the same
thing, and thereby either misleading the mind, or
leaving it in a confused state? We incline to the
opinion these questions cannot be answered negative-
ly, and it is a matter of importance to settle, so far
as may be, the meaning and proper application of
the terms used.

And, to begin at the beginning, we must try first
to answer the question raised concerning depravity,
or, as it is often stated, total depravity In doing
this we will first give a brief statement of the teach-
ings of the leading churches on the subject :

48 HE WAS CONVERTED.

The doctrine of the Catholic Church on original
sin, as set forth by an able and approved author
(Moehler) is simple and may be reduced to the fol-
lowing propositions :

Adam by sin lost his original justice and holiness,
drew upon himself, by his disobedience, the displeas-
ure and judgments of the Almighty, incurred the
penalty of death, and thus, in all his parts — in his
body as well as his soul — became strangely deterio-
rated. This sinful condition is transmitted to all his
posterity as descended from him, entailing the con-
sequences, that man is himself incapable — even with
the aid of the most perfect ethical law offered to him
from without — to act in a manner agreeable to God,
or in any other way to be justified before him, save
only by the merits of Jesus Christ.

With this agree the teachings of all the Doctrinal
Catechisms that have fallen under our notice, par-
ticularly that of Rev P Collet of Sorbonne, and
that of Rev Stephen Keenan, both of whom, we be-
lieve, are recognized by the Church.

The "Assembly's (Presbyterian) Confession of
Faith ' ' has the following :

" Our first parents, * * * being the root of all mankind,
the guilt of this (Adam's) sin was imputed, and the same death
in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity,
descended from them by ordinary generation. From this orig-
inal corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled
and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil
do proceed all actual transgressions."

The Heidelberg Catechism reads :
" From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam

HE WAS CONVERTED. 49

and Eve, in Paradise; hence, our nature is become so corrupt
that we are all conceived and born in sin."

The Methodist Churches, both in England and
America, and wherever else they are found, have ex-
pressed their views in an article, thus :

" Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the
Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature
of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of
Adam, whereby man is very far gone fr/)m original righteous-
ness and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continu-
ally "

To be sure this is not all that is taught on the sub-
ject by some of these churches. The Catholic, the
Lutheran, the Church of England, the Protestant
Episcopal Church in this country, and the Presby-
terian, all teach, either by positive declaration or by
legitimate inference, that the guilt as well as the cor-
ruption of Adam s sin has been transmitted to his
posterity, so that every one born into this world
"deserveth God's wrath and, damnation," as the
Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal
Church in this country express it, or " whereby he
is bound over to the wrath of God and curse of
the law," as it is expressed in the Assembly's Cat-
echism.

This view is not taken by intelligent Methodists,
nor is it taught in their Articles of Religion. They
accept the Article as quoted above — accept the doc-
trine of transmitted corruption, but not of trans-
mitted personal sin, believing that the "Lamb of
God hath taken away the sin of the world ' ' — that
is, "as by the offense of one judgment came upon

50 HE WAS CONVERTED.

all men to condemnation, even .so by the righteous-
ness of one the free gift came upon all men unto
justification of life." The sin of Adam and the
merits of Christ are here pronounced to be co-ex-
tensive. "Judgment came upon all all men" —
the free gift came upon all men So, if in the first
clause the whole human race be meant, the same is
meant in the second clause ; and it follows that as
all were injured by the sin of Adam, so all are ben-
efited by the obedience of Christ. Therefore, what-
ever these benefits be, all children dying in infancy
must partake of them, else there would be a large
portion of mankind upon whom they never came —
who never received the " free gift " — and this would
contradict the Apostle's words. Therefore, "the
sin of the world," or the personal sin and guilt of
Adam's posterity, being taken away by " the Lamb
of God," the "free gift" having come "upon all
men to justification of life " — jus facer e — to make it
right for men to have life ; and as sin per se is a
transgression of the law, and those dying in infancy
never sinned, they are all saved in heaven through
the merits of Christ.

But to return to depravity direct. Neither any of
the formulated creeds referred to, nor the Bible, use
the phrase "total depravity;" and how it came in
such common use among a large class of writers and
speakers might, perhaps, be satisfactorily explained
were it required by the necessities of the case. But
however that may be, the propriety of its use may,

HE WAS CONVERTED. 51

except as a mere quotation, or for the purpose of
illustration, well be questioned.

If our fallen humanity be considered separate and
apart from the redemptorv scheme, then its deprav-
ity may be regarded as total or entire. For if the
fall mean anything, it means complete alienation
from God. Left to himself, after the original trans-
gression, man would never have made a right choice
nor performed an holy act. The race whose pro-
genitor began his career in an act of deliberate re-
bellion, would not do otherwise than fly from bad
to worse.1

If, therefore, we find in man, before liis conver-
sion and regeneration, any qualities or elements
which are not stamped with selfishness, sin and re-
bellion against God, we are compelled to say that
such qualities do not strictly belong to the fallen
nature of man. If, also, we find any unregenerated
man in the possession of external objects which af-
ford the least possible enjoyment, we are likewise
forced to admit that such possessions do not prop-
erly belong to a fallen human nature ; the normal
inheritance of a depraved man is spiritual death,
utter poverty, and constant misery Total deprav-
ity can not imply less than what is involved in these
two propositions — utterly destitute of goodness, and
utterly destitute of happiness and enjoyment 2

But this is not man's condition. He is in possession
of good — much good — temporal and intellectual,

iDr. Bellows. 2Dr. Townsend.

52 HE WAS CONVERTED.

and as "every good and perfect gift cometh down
from the Father of lights," man is to be considered
in relation to the scheme of redemption, and as re-
ceiving all the good he possesses or enjoys, from the
giver of all good, through the merits of the Re-
deemer. On this principle the opposing views
which have struggled against each other so long
and so bitterly, may be harmonized. Those who
contend that man is " dead in sin, and wholly defiled
in all the faculties and all the parts of his soul and
body," are right, if reference is made to man as left
by the fall and without the benefits of the scheme
of redemption. While those who contend that man
is not " death sick, but naturally in health sufficient,
with proper diet and exercise, to develop into per-
fection," are right if reference be had to man as
endowed with certain unmerited and special favors
by divine grace. The Old-Schoolmen say "man
has no right ability," and separately from the atone-
ment he has not. They are right. The New-School
men say "man can fulfill God's requirements," and
if by can they mean the gracious ability which God
bestows, they are right. The sum of the whole is :
Without Christ we can do nothing ; through Christ
strengthening us we do all things required of us.

It were useless to speculate upon what man was
or would have been without a Redeemer. That is
not his condition. He has a Redeemer, who lighteth
every man that cometh into the world, and through
whom came the grace which bringeth salvation, and

HE WAS CONVERTED. 63

hath appeared to all men and appeared in all men,
by the bestowment of all the good, temporal or
spiritual, which they enjoy, who is the way, the
truth and the life, and by whom men may come
back to a forsaken Father, and again enjoy his di-
vine favor.

And now let us consider the progressiva steps by
which that return may be effected. In the common
language of the Church, these are usually designated
by the terms awakening, conviction, repentance,
faith, justification, adoption, regeneration, new birth,
conversion, and sanctification, and by the catechisms
and leading writers of the Church these terms are
defined :

Awakening — Having the attention and feelings more than
ordinarily fixed upon and more deeply interested in religious
matters as pertaining to one's self. More than usually con-
cerned about religion.

Conviction, in a religious sense, is the first degree of repent-
ance, and implies an affecting sense of our guilt before God,
and that we deserve and are exposed to His wrath. — ( Watson.)

"Repentance — True repentance is a grace of the Holy Spirit,
whereby a sinner, from the sense of his sins and apprehension
of the mercy of God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of
his sin turn from it to God, with full purpose of and endeavors
after future obedience." — (Catechism.)

An evangelical repentance, which is a godly sorrow wrought
in the heart of a sinful person by the word and spirit of God,
whereby from a sense of his sin as offensive to God, and defiling
and endangering his own soul, and from an apprehension of the
mercy of God in Christ he with grief and hatred of all his
known sins turns from them to God as his Savior and Lord.—
(Watson.)

Faith in Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive and rest
on him alone for salvation . as he is offered to us in the gospel.

54 BE WAS CONVERTED.

Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein He par-
doneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous in His sight,
only for the sake of Christ. — (Catechism.)

Justification in theology is used for the acceptance of one, by
God, who is, and confesses himself to be guilty. . . Hence
it appears that justification and the remission or forgiveness of
sin are substantially the same thing. These expressions relate
to one and the same act of God — to one and the same privilege
of his believing people. — (Watson.)

Adoption is an act of God*s free grace, whereby, upon the
forgiveness of sins, we are received into the number and have a
right to all the privileges of the sons of God. — (Catechism.)

" Adoption, in a theological sense, is that act of God's free
grace by which, upon our being justified by faith in Christ we
are received into the family of God and entitled to the inherit-
ance of heaven." — (Watson.)

Kegeneration is that great change which God works in the
soul when he raises it from the death of sin to the life of right-
eousness. It is the change wrought in the soul by the Almighty
when it is created anew in Christ Jesus, when it is renewed after
the image of God in righteousness and true holiness. Then our
sanctification being begun, we receive power to grow in grace
and in the knowledge of Christ, and to live in the exercise of
inward and outward holiness.

Entire sanctification is the state of being entirely cleansed
from sin, so as to love God with all our heart, and mind, and
soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. — (Catechism.)

Regeneration — a new birth — that work of the Holy Spirit by
which we experience a change of heart. It is expressed in
Scripture by being born again. The change in regen-

eration consists in the recovery of the moral image of God upon
the heart; that is to say, so as to love Him supremely, and serve
Him ultimately as our highest end, and to delight in Him super-
latively as our chief good.

Sanctification, that work of God's grace by which we are re-
newed after the image of God, set apart for his service, and
enabled to die unto sin and live unto righteousness. — ( Watson. )

It will be observed that Watson speaks of regen-
eration and new birth as one and the same. In an-
other place he says :

HE WAS CONVERTED- 65

Conversion — Considered theologically, consists in a renova-
tion of the heart and life, or a being turned from sin aud the
power of Satan unto God.

The attentive reader will easily perceive that Mr
Watson not only speaks of regeneration and new
birth as one and the saine; but that he also makes
little or no difference between regeneration and the
new birth on the one part, and conversion and sanc-
tification on the other If either regeneration or
conversion, as he uses these terms, embrace all that
is implied in his definitions, then they embrace all
that is implied in his definition of sanctification.
For if the soul be thoroughly raised from a death of
sin to a life of righteousness in the full sense of
those terms, then what more is embraced in his defi-
nition of the other term? Or if conversion mean
a thorough "renovation of the heart and life, as a
being turned from sin and the power of satan unto
God," what more is there in sanctification as he de-
fines it? A close study of these definitions will
reveal the fact that the distinction or difference be-
tween the several works of grace on the heart,
whatever it may have been in the mind of the writer,
is not clearly expressed in the definitions given. A
still greater confounding of terms used as designa-
tive of this work of grace is plainly, and often pain-
fully noticeable in the writings and oral teachings
of others.

In view of this fact, and also of the further fact
that if the soul make the attainments and reach the

■

ends set before it in the gospel of Christ, its views

50 .HE WAS CONVEBTED.

of what these ends are, and how they should be at-
tained, should be characterized by greater or less
definiteness and clearness as well as correctness. In
other words, it must have its ideal — and that ideal
must be correct in itself. In view of this, the fol-
lowing thoughts are respectfully submitted for the
consideration of all inquirers after truth :

First — Considered as separate from the atone-
ment, and separate from all the provisions and ben-
efits of the Redemptory scheme, human nature — as
a nature — separate from all other natures — in all its
essential characteristics and all its differentiation — is
entirely and utterly depraved. There is no good in
it — nor can it, of itself, attain to good, or perform
that which is good. But —

Secondlv — This nature has been redeemed — "not
with corruptible things as gold and silver, but with
the precious blood of Christ." And to redeem it
Christ himself took upon him our nature — " not the
nature of Angels but the seed of Abraham" — was
" made under the law, to redeem them that were
under the law " And when he took upon him the
nature of one man he took upon him the nature of
every man — and when in that nature, he redeemed
one man he redeemed all men. He took the nature
that had sinned, and in that nature he made an atone-
ment for that nature, and by consequence for all
who possessed it. And now as " every good and per-
fect i>ift cometh down from the Father of liohts,"
ill the good that comes to man, whether to him as a

HE WAS CONVERTED. 57

physical, intellectual, social or moral being ; all, all
comes from God through the merits and mediation
of Christ. Let this great truth be pondered well —
and then

Thirdly — Remember that the objects, purposes,
plans, and all the workings of the redemptory scheme
were designed to bring fallen and lost humanity back
to the Father from whom by disobedience it had
strayed and become lost. In order to do this, how-
ever, it was and is necessary that it be regenerated —
reproduced — that is, generated or produced again ;
or, as the Apostle expresses it, "renewed in the
spirit of your mind" — or renewed in the spirit of
the spirit- — not only in the thoughts and feelings, the
aspirations and aims, the affections and desires ; not
only the volitions, but renewed in the basis on which
all these rest, the source whence they flow, the unde-
fined and undefinable /, the Me, the very Ego of the
man. This must be regenerated or reproduced. And
now all the good, temporal, intellectual, or purely
spiritual that is bestowed upon man is bestowed in
view of this end ; bestowed in order to his regenera-
tion and the bringing him back to his ' ' Father in
heaven." And the regenerative process, in its widest
signification, includes the totality of the work of
grace performed in man, from the first beamings of
that * « light which lighteth everv man that cometh
into the world " to the final salvation of the soul in
heaven, while awakening, conviction, contrition, the
grace of faith and repentance, justification, the being

58 HE WAS CONVEBTED.

born again, adoption and sanctification, are stages in
the same general regenerative process.

This admitted, then, it follows that the "sin of
the world ' ' being taken away by Him who bore our
sins, and the salvation of all who die in infancy thus
secured, it remains for individual sinners, for per-
sonal transgressors to become co-workers with God
who worketh in them, both to will and to do and
work out their salvation. That is, to heed the light
that shineth, and walk in that light ; to note the
awakening or quickening influences of the Holy Spirit
on their minds and hearts, and carefully cherish these
influences as best they can, follow on through all the
stages of the process, and thus attain to a full and
complete resurrection unto life. And if this yield-
ins; obedience and co-workins" be besfun with the first
operations of the Holy Spirit and closely followed in
its progressive influences and teachings, the individual
may thus, through grace, retain his infant justifica-
tion and grow in grace as he grows in stature. This,
however, sad to say, is rarely done.

If this general view were taken, would not men be
more careful ' ' not to despise the gifts ' ' that are be-
stowed, and not to receive "the grace of God in

vain."

Young Marvin did not retain the grace of infant
justification. Like most others he went astray, fol-
lowing the devices of his own heart, and seeking his
own pleasure. This continued year after year —
until at length he gave attention to the inward warn-

HE WAS CONVERTED. 59

ings — and, through grace, was enabled to repent,
believe and experience a change that made him con-
sciously " a new creature," and placed him appa-
rently in a new world. The whole face of nature,
both animate and inanimate, seemed to him to have
undergone a renewing change. It seemed to rise
fresh and smiling, as from a baptism of infinite love.
The skies were no longer sad — the heavens no long-
er distant. The leafless trees of the forest took
forms and hues of beauty that his spring-tide and
summer recollections of their loveliness could not
match. The frost-burned fields were fairer than
when he had seen them clad with verdure and gold-
en with grain. The murmur of the streams had
tones of music deeper and sweeter than he had ever
caught before, and especially all forms of life were
animate with joy and vocal with praise. From insect
to man, the world so long unstrung had been sud-
denly attuned, by some unseen hand, and harmony
supplanted discord on all the strings of life. The
faces of his friends, in particular, seemed to have
caught the celestial halo of the pictured saints and/
angels ; and through this glory he looked upon his
mother's face, and clasped her hand and leaned his
boyish head upon her tender breast.

He understood well enough that all this was the
effect of his own excited and surcharged feelings.
We have often heard him say, referring to this expe-
rience, " it was but the subjective clothing the objec-
tive with its own bright hues." But the extent and

60 HE WAS CONVERTED.

intensity of this illusion evidenced the thorough-
ness of the change that had passed upon his spirit.
This change was no illusion. It widened, deep-
ened and strengthened with his physical frame.
As the seventeen-year old boy grew to manhood,
ripened to maturity, and passed on into the early
autumn of life, where the death-frost found and
killed him, the sun of an unclouded conscious-
ness continued to attest the fact of his conversion.
Hence, there was no paralysis of doubt, or exhaust-
ing strife of inward dissidence to cripple or impair
his spiritual powers. They were always ready for
the frav, and the waste of war was alwavs on the
enemy's ground.

Marvin's conversion did not, as was so common in
that day, occur in a revival-meeting, and no minister
was specially instrumental in the work. He attrib-
uted it more to the religious influence of his mother
than to any other human agency It was the ripened
harvest of her early sowing, whose golden fruits
are gathered now, under her eye and near her heart,
in the granary of heaven.

Like Saul of Tarsus, the first impulsive utterance
of his renewed heart was, " Lord, what wilt thou
have me do?" He was ready for anything, and he
did not believe that God meant him to be idle. Not
for this, he was sure, had been given him the riches
of Divine Grace and the inspiration of Infinite Love.
The treasure was unquestionably his, but what should
he do with it? This was the question of the hour,

HE WAS CONVEBTED. 61

from the solution of which his life would take its
final bent. There must be some work for him. But
what was it? Never mind. God would show it to
him in his own good time and way Meanwhile, he
had to do, for the present, with only the nearest and
most obvious duty To this he gave himself with
concentrated energy and burning zeal. The prayer-
meeting, the class-room, the revival- altar, all the
work of the Church, witnessed his fervid devotion,
and were quickened to higher efficiency by his labors.
Gradually the conviction grew among preachers and
people, " this young man is chosen of Ood for the
work of the ministry." It found expression in the
common conversations of which his talents and labors
were the subject, and in the special tasks for which
he was designated by the leaders of the Church. At
length it was suggested to himself ; and an inward
voice, which he felt was Divine, confirmed it to his
soul. He knew it for the call of God, and he
answered, with earnest and resolute submission,
"Here am I. Send me." And so it came to pass
that, in 1841, when but little more than eighteen
years of age, and in less than one year after his con-
version, Enoch Mather Marvin entered the ministry,
and was received on trial in the Missouri Conference.

($H«ptM gxxtU.

A CALL TO THE MINISTRY.

IN all the various departments of ecclesiastical
polity, and among all the interests therein in-
volved, there are none that demand more serious
attention than those pertaining to a call and qualifi-
cation for the ministry As if by immutable law,
or by stern unyielding fate, as is the minister so are
the people. Ordinarily, they will be intelligent,
enterprising, energetic, industrious, upright, and
exemplary ; or directly the reverse, accordingly as
he teaches and practices among them. They will,
so long as they acknowledge and receive him as
their minister, imbibe more or less of his spirit ;
they will in some degree copy his example and tread
in his footsteps. He will do much to make or to
mar them — to help them to heaven or drive them
to hell. If he be really and deeply pious, imbued
with the Spirit of the Master whom he professes to
serve — if "the burden of souls " be upon his heart —
if he rightly appreciate the nature and obligations
of his calling, realize its responsibilities, so that
with Paul he can deeply feel and truly exclaim,

A CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 63

"Wo is me if I preach not the gospel," and still
like Paul declare, "I determined not to know any-
thing among you save Jesus Christ, and him cruci-
fied," and that "I count all things but loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my
Lord" — if he really be ''crucified to the world, and
the world crucified" to him, and the life he now
lives in the flesh he lives "by faith in the Son of
God" — if he recognize and feel himself to be an
ambassador of Christ, speaking in Christ's stead,
and in all his conduct and conversation manifest
these things — then indeed will he be blessed of God,
and the people be blessed through his ministrations.
But if "no man taketh this honor unto himself but
he that is called of God, as was Aaron," then a
careful examination as to what constitutes a Divine
call to the ministry is proper at almost any time, or
in any place. There is too much depending on this
to allow it to be passed over slightly The intelli-
gence, the piety, the progressiveness, the prosperity
and the safety of the Church are all involved ; and
in this, as in all things else, the nearer men conform
to the Divine plan, the more safe and successful will
they be.

As to what constitutes a call to the work of the
ministry there is, it must be admitted, a diversity
of opinion among Christian people ; and yet all
Churches agree that it is highly improper to enter
upon it impelled only by those mere secular and low
inducements by which men are led to engage in

64 A CALL TO THE MINISTBY.

the common every-day employments of life. The
Churches generally hold — though not with entire
unanimity — that the selecting or designating of men
for the ministry is the peculiar prerogative of the
Almighty. As in former dispensations, Aaron and
his sons, and the whole tribe of Levi were called to
the Jewish priesthood, and Moses, David, Elisha,
Jeremiah, John the Baptist, and other prophets,
were specially called to their work, and as the same
principle prevailed in Apostolic times, the Savior
himself having entered and exercised the prophetic
and priestly office by Divine appointment, and as he
specially called those whom he chose to be his Apos-
tles, so the principle should still be recognized in
the Churches, and the recognition continued till
Christ shall come again. Peter and Andrew, James
and John and Matthew and the other Apostles re-
ceived their call from the Lord Jesus in person, and
by him were commissioned to preach the gospel first
to the Jews, and subsequently to the world ; and
Saul who was called of God to be an Apostle, not-
withstanding the infant Church had, in a most solemn
manner, elected Matthias to take part in the Apos-
tleship. Barnabas and Silas, and as we may safely
conclude, all the early preachers were made "over-
seers of the Church by the Holy Ghost." Nor are
we to suppose that this was but a temporary pro-
vision for the supply of preachers during the age of
miracles. On the contrary, it is referred to as a
perpetual resource of the Church ; hence the com-

A CALL TO THE M1NISTBY. 65

mand given to us to pray for the appointment of
ministers — " Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that
he will send forth laborers into his harvest/ '

The New Testament abounds with both preceptive
and suggestive teachings on the subject which must
convince all intelligent and candid men that both
the ministry and ministers are by (rod's appoint-
ment, and that such and only such as he appoints
are true ministers. This high prerogative, then,
God still exercises in the Church, although the mod<j$
by which the call is made now differ widely from
those used in former dispensations. Men are not
now called as were Peter and Andrew, James and
John, and Matthew No audible voice is now heard
calling men to leave the common avocations of life
and enter the ministry Nor are we to expect any
such phenomena as that characterizing the conver-
sion and call of Saul of Tarsus. As well might we
expect the bestowment of the gift of tongues, or of
healing. Instances have occurred in modern times,
and do still occur, where persons have thought them-
selves called to the ministry by an audible voice —
by dreams or by some unaccountable impulse ; but
while charity might prompt us to believe them sin-
cere, it would be verv unsafe to give heed to such
phantasies ; and the Church that would commission
such idle visionaries to expound God's holy word
could not be very far from corruption and ruin.

In the first stages of the propagation of the gospel
the operations of Divine grace on the individual heart

66 A CALL TO THE MINISTRY.

were not unfrequently accompanied by visible mani-
festations designed perhaps to produce conviction in
the minds of unbelievers. The forgiveness of sins
was sometimes accompanied by the healing of bodily
diseases, both by Christ and his Apostles. When
the Holy Ghost was given in the day of Pentecost it
sat upon the disciples as "cloven tongues of fire,"
but when received by Cornelius and others, then
present at the preaching of Peter, no such miracle
nor phenomenon occurred. That same spirit still
converts the soul, and the many and varied miracles
wrought in those days on the physical man were em-
blems of the greater miracles wrought by the Holy
Ghost — greater because to convince a soul of sin is a
work far above that of convicting a man of crime ;
while giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf,
speech to the dumb, strength to the impotent, the
cleansing of the lepers, the healing of the sick, the
raising of the dead, were all great works worthy of
him by whom or in whose name they were performed ;
their antitypes on the soul by the power of the Holy
Ghost were far greater. The spiritually opening of
eyes, unstopping ears, loosing tongues, healing sick-
nesses, cleansing leprosy, supplanting impotency
with strength, and raising the spiritually dead are
works in magnitude and importance far beyond those
performed on the body ; hence the Master said, " The
works that I do shall ye do, and greater works than
these shall ye do, because I go unto my Father,"
when, as he said, " I will send the Comforter and he

A CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 67

shall abide with you forever." The spirit is the
same — the great work performed is substantially the
same, while the modes and manifestations are some-
what different.

" A call to the ministry may be defined a persua-
sion wrought by the Holy Spirit in the mind of an
individual that it is his duty to become a preacher of
the gospel. It is recognized by the subject of it
simply as a conviction of duty, which, however, is
properly ascribed to the Holy Spirit the Divine agent
which produces all pious emotions and purposes.
This impression varies greatly in clearness and in-
tensity in different individuals, and in the same
individual at different times. At first it may be per-
ceived only in the form of a casual suggestion, a
transient desire, or a mere inquiry awakened in the
mind by reflection, reading, conversation, or other
ordinary means ; and it is commonly developed and
matured by prayer, by self-examination, by perusing
the Scriptures, by hearing the gospel, by pious con-
ference, by meditating upon the wants of the Church
and of the world — in a word, by all those means
which deepen piety and make more fervent our love
to Christ. The progress of the mind from first im-
pressions to a thorough and abiding conviction is
sometimes slow, and may possibly be the work of
years. It is commonly found, however, that the
views of one who ultimately attains to clear evidence
of his call to the ministry become clear and settled
with a rapidity proportioned to his growth in grace

68 A CALL TO THE MINISTBY.

and habitual fidelity to the Kedeemer's cause. The
distressing and protracted doubts with regard to the
subject which oppress so many minds may commonly
be traced to superficial piety, to worldly feeling, and
an unwillingness to engage in a work so abhorrent to
sloth, ambition and selfishness. A few individuals
who are doomed to struggle with morbid peculiari-
ties of miud or body, or with the prejudices of a
vicious education, may be long in attaining to a sat-
isfactory evidence with regard to the path of duty,
but in most, perhaps in all other cases, it is reason-
able to expect that the humble, the obedient, and the
teachable will soon be relieved from all painful un-
certainty

' ' The feebleness and indistinctness of first impres-
sions should not be taken as an argument against
their genuineness. On the contrary, it seems to be
most consistent with the whole economy of the gospel,
that the manifestation of the Spirit should, at first,
be only sufficient to awaken the attention and to ex-
cite the mind to a course of inquiry and self-exam-
ination, and that it should shine upon us in a clearer
light in answer to our prayers, and in aid of our
humble endeavors to ascertain and perform our duty-
Every part of the gospel economy is conformed to
the condition of man in a state of probation, and it
may be doubted whether the Holy Spirit ever exerts
an influence upon the human mind beyond its power
of prompt and easy resistance. But without stop-
ping to inquire whether there are any exceptions to

A CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 69

the great law by which the Divine agent is pleased to
regulate his own operations, we may rest assured
that, in calling the ministry, as well as in his other
offices, ' a manifestation of the Spirit is given to profit
withal,' that 'to him that hath, more shall be given ;'
and that they who are graciously visited by this
Divine light may, at their option, follow or extinguish
it. There is a palpable and perilous mistake on this
subject, which prevails very extensively in the
Church. Many young men who have been led to
think it their duty to devote themselves to the min-
istry, give no heed to this impression, under a vain
belief that, if the call be genuine, it will become
more loud and importunate for being neglected.
Thev imagine that this work of the Spirit differs
essentially from all its other operations, and they
seem to demand that its influence shall be irresistible
before they will cease to resist it. The practical
efforts of this pernicious error are often no less in-
structive than melancholy The holy visitant which
was given to enlighten, not to control the mind, is
grieved by neglect and disobedience. Incipient con-
victions of dutv stow feeble and confused, and the
feelings subside into fearful indifference, which is too
often regarded as sufficient proof that God has not
spoken." x

If the views advanced above are correct it is a
matter of great importance to every pious young
man who has been brought to feel that it may prob-

i Dr. Olin.

70 A CALL TO THE MINISTRY.

ably be his duty to preach the gospel, to give the
subject an immediate and prayerful attention — con-
sider it carefully, and use all proper means to ascer-
tain his duty — and if it be not to become a minister,
yet he is bound to devote himself actively and unre-
servedly to the cause of Christ, and that, too, in the
way which, after careful and prayerful examination,
shall to his judgment and conscience seem to be the
will of God and the indication of His Providence . But
no individual who may think himself called to the
work of preaching the gospel, ought to feel sure of
his call, or enter upon the work, without a careful
examination as to his qualifications. Every one who
may be under convictions of duty in this matter,
and is not qualified for the work to which he may
think himself called, is under the most sacred and
solemn obligations to use every means at his com-
mand, and employ all his time in securing such a
training as will prepare him for the work — and if
God has really called him the way will be opened by
which the requisite preparation can be made.

It may not be amiss to remark in this connection
— that what is usually termed a classical education is
by no means essential to a successful prosecution of
the ministry in the case of each and every individual
minister — as the facts connected with the history of
the subject of these sketches demonstrate. To the
Church has been given apostles, prophets, evangel-
ists, pastors and teachers ; and while classical learn-
ing is important and, perhaps, essential to the min-

A CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 71

istry as a whole, it by no means follows that each
and every individual minister must be in possession
of it. While some gather the learning of the world
and use it in explaining, defending and enforcing the
Divine Word, others may be serving as evangelists,
calling sinners to repentance, and thus spreading a
knowledge of the truth.

It was a remark of DeAubigne that " unity in
diversity, and diversity in unity, is a law of nature,
and also of the Church." It is true. And this
unity and this diversity are as clearly manifested in
the Christian ministry as anywhere else. While
the history of the past records wonderful instances
of success attending the labors of men who knew no
language but that of the common people, and to
whom science and philosophy were almost unknown
terms — they were men of God — mighty in the
Scriptures, knowing nothing " Save Jesus Christ,
and Him crucified," were endowed with power from
on high, and were thus owned and blessed of God.

But whoever is Divinely called to the work, wheth-
er as an evangelist, pastor or teacher, passes through
a severe ordeal. He has a sense of the importance
of work, of the fearful responsibilities connected
with it, and of his utter unfitness — of himself — to
perform it, keener and deeper than that experienced
by any other, or that he himself experienced pre-
vious to his recognition of that call. Neither the
pencil of a Hogarth nor the pen of a Smollet could
paint or portray the stragglings, the agony of the

72 A CALL TO THE MINISTRY.

soul in that fearful experience. Yet through this
ordeal, so trying, and in which so many souls are
wrecked, the boy, Marvin, passed easily and safely -
This exemption and security he owed to the thor-
oughness of his original consecration. When he said,
in the hour of his conversion, " Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do ? " his spirit took an attitude of sub-
mission to the Divine will from which it never un-
bent. It needed only to assure him of the authen-
ticity of his Divine vocation to the ministry in order
to secure his prompt and cheerful obedience. Here,
indeed, he had some trouble. Because the subject
was originally suggested to him by others, he feared
that it might have had no higher origin than their
partial hopes ; and to these, however flattering, it
would not become him to listen. Had it not been
for the distinctness of their echo in his own bosom,
the promptings of others would never have occasioned
him a second thought. But this voice within him !
Might it not be that of his own ambition, pride
or vanity? He resolutely demanded this answer of
himself, and rendered it with the sunny candor
of his earliest religious thought. No, he was inclined
to think, after long pondering on the question, it
could be no ambition, pride or vanity which prompt-
ed him to the ministry. Ambition ! where were its
fields and its rewards of power, dignity and wealth
in the humble calling; of a Methodist itinerant? how
could pride be gratified by his becoming the obedi-
ent a- nd self-denying servant of others? and how few

A CALL TO THE MINISTBY. 73

and feeble were the voices which would praise such a
choice, compared to the multitudes who would wel-
come him to another and more brilliant career?
Besides that he had consciously cast these motives
out of his heart, how could they come to him in the
guise of their opposites? Of this, then, he was sure
— that no form of worldly selfishness bade him preach
the Gospel.

But what, then, was it? this inward persuasion —
which seemed to gather, in its firm but gentle hand,
all the forces of feeling and of reason, and bind
them on that rude altar, the Methodist itinerant
ministry? It came not, certainly, from himself; for
he could distinctly see that his own wish and con-
viction pointed to other fields, and that these had
been arrested and held in leash by an alien and a
stronger force. As certainly it came not from the
suggestions of others ; for when, before, was any
counsel of friends, however dear, gifted with this
strange potency that 4 it silenced every dissenting
voice of his own soul, and made itself alone audible
in the ear of consciousness? Above all, it could be
no diabolical inspiration ; for it lacked every quality
of meanness and malice, and was full of tenderness
and love. Whence then could it come but from
above ? and what could it be but the whisper of the
Divine Spirit, bidding him to go forth to that life-
work concerning which he had humbly asked the
counsel and guidance of Heaven? Thus, by reason
as well as faith — by an analysis of exclusion, if we

U A CALL TO THE MINI STB Y.

may so term it — he reached and rested in the assur-
ance that he was called of God to preach the Gospel.
From this moment to the end of life, he never
wavered in his conviction or turned aside from the
path of duty which it indicated.

(ttlwpttv gtvtntU.

ITINERANCY.

THE Methodist Itinerancy is the wonder, but not
quite the admiration, of the world. Arising
almost within the memory of living men it has, within
little more than a hundred years, spanned oceans,
subdued forests, conquered deserts, and now num-
bers its ministers by tens of thousands and its adhe-
rents by millions ; and at the same time that it has
gone so far, it has most effectively remained at home.
It has occupied and swayed the centres, as well as
subjugated the outskirts, of civilization. While it
has gained so much, it has forsaken nothing. In the
interest and enthusiasm of foreign conquest it has
left no home-field -until led, no cottage desolate. A
chain so flexible to itself and so unyielding to others ;
so light and yet so strong ; whose adventurous links,
however widely separated are never sundered, and
are always increasing in numbers and in force ;
in what work-shop was it forged ? and whose is the
hand so rapidly bearing it round the world?

For a merely natural answer, which would exclude

76 ITWEBANCY.

all super-human agencies, it might be said that it
originated solely in the restless zeal and organizing
brain of a persecuted priest of the Church of En-
gland who, perceiving the inefficiency of existing
forms of religion, sought to recast it in a mould of
his own invention. But this answer would satisfy
others as little as ourselves. The friends of the sys-
tern (of whom the writer is one of the most ar-
dent) would complain, that it were attributing
to the agency of a mere man, that which was the
obvious work of God ; and in this complaint they
would be justified. Its enemies, on the other hand,
must themselves confess that such a cause is wholly
inadequate to its supposed effects. These enemies
of the Methodist system may be distinguished into
two great classes, and their arrows of criticism
assail it from opposite directions.

The first of these classes consists of the hyper-
orthodox, who regard Methodism as a schism, and
competing sects who may be envious of its success.
The former are represented by the Catholics and the
high-church Episcopalians, and the latter have a
common and every-day apparency, in newspapers,
public addresses, and controversial books, which
renders it unnecessary that they should be particu-
larly named. These regard Methodism and par-
ticularly the itinerancy as of bad origin and, indeed,
do not scruple to say, when provoked by contumacy
or warmed by debate, that it was begotten by the
father of evil : and for the proofs of its bad origin,

ITINEBANCY. 77

they point to all the traits which distinguish it from
their own systems, and pronounce them distinctly
and altogether unscriptural and bad. " Look," cries
the angry and intolerant high-churchman, "at your
boasted Itinerancy ! What is it, after all, but a
parcel of uncultivated laymen, going about singing,
praying, and ranting, in order to escape the pains of
that honest labor in which they would be much bet-
ter and more profitably employed? What good do
they accomplish? Do they not stir up the dregs of
the people and minister to the wildest and most
vicious excitements? Do they not travesty our
sacraments, cripple our revenues and almost depop-
ulate our churches ? Do they not lead thousands of
poor souls astray, who will infallibly be lost? And
this you call a glorious system ! Away with it, to
the foul depths out of which it crawled like a ser-
pent, to writhe its blighting way through the'
world ! ' '

But, we reply, so long as these, whom they call
unordained men, are able to preach the Gospel with
an eloquence, learning, and effectiveness, to say the
least, much greater than their own "legitimate
apostolical successors ;" so long as their spontaneous
prayers have a fervor, earnestness, and spirituality
of devotion unknown to ritualistic forms ; while, in
active practical benificence, they far surpass their
churchly critics ; while, in sobriety, simplicity, and
purity of life, they put to shame, and ought to put
to the blush, the men who denounce them : they can

78 ITINERANCY.

well afford to smile at the impotence of that rage
whose only weapon is invective.

But competing sects can not stand upon the high
ground of peerless orthodoxy and hurl down anath-
emas upon the "Methodist Schism." So far as
apostolical authority goes they are in the same kind
of boat — only somewhat more frail and a great deal
smaller — as that which carries the fortunes of the
Itinerancy. Still, they agree with the churchmen
that it is a sort of mechanical bird of perdition,
whose wonderful energies are sustained by unscrip-
tural power. It is a "Great Iron Wheel," which
crushes and grinds all with which it comes in con-
tact ; and to this wheel are chained the Methodist
preachers and the Methodist people, with the single
consolation that they are helping to bruise others
while being bruised themselves. And this is the
method of their argument :

"The Itinerancy is iron, because of its unyielding
restrictions ; and it is a wheel, because of its regu-
lar revolutions. Now, a restriction is an evil in
itself, a logical evil ; and the burden of proof that
it is not an evil, in any particular case in which it is
employed, rests upon those who favor its use. But
we are willing to forego our logical rights and fur-
nish you with the proof that it is evil, and only evil,
as your Methodist system applies it to the ministry
of the Church. Why, in the first place, it breaks
up the pastoral relation. There can be no ties
of mutual confidence and affection between your

ITINEBANCY. 79

preachers and people, for they hardly come to know
each other before the sullen, grinding machinery
rends them apart. Thus your system, even if it
make converts, can mature no Christians, In the
second place, it spoils the preachers both in temper
and understanding — as preachers and as men. They
can deliver the same discourse to different cong-reo-a-
tions on their circuits every Sunday for a month, and
thus escape the salutary discipline of severe and
regular study in their earlier ministry ; while their
frequent removal from circuit to circuit, is a stand-
ing temptation to them not to study : thus they be-
come mere rote and memoriter repeaters of a few
stale platitudes which derive all their efficacy from
violent gesticulation and incoherent declamation.
Then the position of authority in which they are
placed over grave men, in everyway their superiors,
tends to make them arbitrary and vain, and their
frequent enforced partings with those whom they
had begun to love beget a temper of coldness, in-
difference, and selfishness which soon renders them
incapable of disinterested friendship or affection.
In the third place, it spoils the people as well as the
preachers. They become as indifferent and selfish as
their so-called pastors. They learn to care nothing
for the present incumbent, and to look eagerly for
his perpetually-coming successor. And in this con-
stant appetite for change consists all their stability
Hence their only conception of religion is a social
excitement. In the fourth place, the system is

80 ITINEBANCT.

hierarchical, and therefore necessarily corrupt. It is
in effect a one-man power The bishop is supreme.
The lives and fortunes, the health and happiness of
the preachers are in his hands. He can send them
where he will — to a fat or a lean appointment — and
none can say him nay. He can send them to com-
parative riches and honor, or poverty and contempt.
It is too much to say, that the possessor of such a
power will not be courted and flattered. He must
be and he is. Hence the parasites of your confer-
ences will become his pets and favorites, and their
best elements, containing all the integrity and
manliness that those bodies possess, will be thrust
backward out of sight to linger in brokenness and
distress, under the shadow of the Episcopal frown.
In the fifth place, your system is arbitrary, and
therefore conspicuously tyranical. It grinds the
faces of God's poor, or it flatters the faces of the
world's rich, according to the whim of the moment
or the temper of the mind. Let a bishop but have
a prejudice against a place or a man, and he may
gratify it by the punishment of both : the place will
get the worst man, and the man will get the worst
place. And the converse is equally true. In fact,
one can set no limit to the evils and abuses of such
a plan. They are inherent and irremediable. They
belong to the system, are a part of it and insepara-
ble from it. When it is freed from them it will no
longer be itself, and such an institution as the
Methodist Itinerancy will no more exist."

ITINEBANCY. 81

And to all this we reply, seriatim, that if, first,
the Itinerancy be iron because of its restrictions, and
a wheel because of its revolutions, then the earth
must be an iron wheel, the sun and moon and all the
planets must be so many iron wheels, every system
of government, sacred and secular, must be an iron
wheel, and the universe itself must be a " Great Iron
Wheel ;" for all these have restrictions and regular
revolutions ; and there can be, on the whole, no ob-
jections to considering the Itinerancy one iron wheel
in such a goodly company

Secondly — The itinerant system does not break up
the pastoral relation. There are no better pastors
than some of the Methodist preachers ; and the pas-
toral fidelity of the whole body will average well
with that of the ministers of any other denomination ;
and, in proportion to numbers, the pastoral relations
of the Methodist preachers are not changed more
frequently than those of other churches. The dif-
ference is — and it is altogether in favor of the itin-
erancy— that with it these changes are effected with-
out friction, debate or church-disturbance. And the
efficiency of its pastoral system may be seen in the
fact that nowhere in the world can there be found
riper and more beautiful examples of Christian man-
hood and womanhood than in the ranks of the Meth-
odist people.

Thirdly — The system does not spoil the preachers,
either in temper or understanding, but develops them
in every noble sense. They make more and better

82 ITINERA XCY

sermons in the saddle, than do many of the theolog-
ical graduates in the study Their prospective
changes only serve to give them that mental repose
— that absence of worry lest they should run out —
which is the condition of the best intellectual action ;
and the effect of the system is seen in the fact that,
by the popular verdict, they are at least the equals,
in eloquence and learning, of their ablest competitors
in any other church. They are not immediately
placed in positions of authority, but learn first to
serve, in order that they may know how, in time,
more kindly and effectually to direct the services of
others. The ties between them and their people are
of the most tender and enduring quality, and it often
occurs that the friendships formed on their first cir-
cuits are their latest and best ; and this arises out of
the very essence of the system ; they go away ex-
pecting to return ; they say, Au revoir, but never
Farewell; and thus regard is nourished by hope.

Fourthly — The system does not spoil the people
any more than it spoils the preachers. They do not
become, under its workings, cold, indifferent and
selfish, but warm, zealous and generous. They care
tenderly for the present pastor, ministering to him,
like nursing fathers and mothers in the Gospel, in
proportion to his need of such help ; and when the
time comes that he must go, they bid him God speed,
and part from him often with weeping ; and the
memory of their tears and prayers becomes his in-
spiration to higher and purer devotion. Then, when

ITINEBANCY. 83

his successor comes, they receive him as the mes-
senger of God, and are ready cheerfully to co-operate
with him in every good work. If the people of some
other churches were spoiled a little, after this Meth-
odist plan, it might do them no harm.

Fifthly — The system is episcopal not hierarchical,
nor is it necessarily corrupt. It is nothing like a
one-man power. The powers of the bishop are as
closely limited, his conduct in their exercise as
rigidly scrutinized, and his responsibility as definitely
fixed and enforced, as those of the humblest worker
in the ranks. He is so far from supreme, that he is
almost the common servant of the preachers. He
can not do as he pleases, with either the preachers
or the people ; there are other hands than his upon
them, that will not let go at his bidding. The pre-
siding elders are the friends of both, and they possess
and exercise the strength of a particular acquaintance
with the places and the men. The bishop is advised
by them, and once let him defy their advice to the
injury of the Church, and he will at the next session
of the General Conference be arraigned, like any
other unfaithful worker, ande censured or retired,
according to bis desert. Even the humblest preacher,
if he is aggrieved by a bishop's action, or even
fancies himself the object of his dislike or caprice,
may present his complaint to the committee on epis-
copacy at a General Conference ; and they will look
into the matter and administer impartial justice, if
for no other reason, because it is in the interest of

8i ITINEBANCY.

their own security from episcopal oppression that it
should be done. As for parasites, they are found
everywhere ; they follow the scent of power and
patronage as carrion birds are attracted by the odor
of putrifying flesh ; but the bishop who does not
recognize them for what they are, or knowing does
not mete them the scorn thev merit, will soon find
himself restrained from the abuse of power and pil-
loried in the censure, if not the contempt of his
people.

Thus it will be seen that the system is not arbi-
trary, as has been supposed and charged, and that no
despotic caprice can control its administration. It
oppresses no man because of his weakness, as it flat-
ters none because of his wealth and social importance.
It merely discriminates the different values of its
many factors of usefulness, employs each in situa^
tions of trust proportioned to his worth, and renders
him a measure of appreciation graduated by his
efficiency in the common work. So, the arraignment
of Methodism by hyper-orthodoxy and the compet-
ing sects, but honors the common object of their
dislike.

The other class of its enemies comprises the phil-
osophers and skeptics, and all whose lives of luxury
and sin are reproached by ns purity and continence.
None of these attributes to Methodism a superhuman
origin, either celestial or infernal; albeit some of
them are sorely puzzled to account, on rational prin-
ciples and by known laws, for its enduring vigor and

ITINEBANCY. 85

efficiency. They do not believe in the existence of
any devil, and their God is one that does not concern
himself with human affairs ; so, being shut out from
these popular sources of explanation, they class the
origin and progress of Methodism with those other
exceptional human phenomena which stubbornly
refuse to come within the ordinary rules of action
and its effects ; and this exposition is so far happy,
that it enables them to say something in a confessedly
very difficult case, and that it is burdened only with
the trifling disability that their exception is larger
than their rule. " Such an instance," they say, " is
afforded by the spread of Christianity These great
results did not flow from the actions of the man,
Christ, because no such causal power was in him ;
neither were they the effects of any supernatural
influence, because no such influence exists ; they were
merely the spontaneous movings of the multitude ;
it was only that humanity was ready for the change,
and that Jesus was caught at the turning point of the
popular tide and so gave his name and character to
that vast flood, of which he was quite as much the
creature and the subject as any other of the count-
less millions which it has embraced. Such other
instances were Mohamedanism, the Crusades, Jesuit-
ism, and the Reformation ; and all the ancient pagan
religions might be added to the list, as well as mul-
titudes of other popular movements of inferior force
and effect. It was not that Mahomet, Peter the
Hermit, Ignatius Loyola or Luther, any more than

86 ITWEBANCY.

Wesley in the present case, was the author and orig-
inator of either of those vast trains of effect which
seemed to proceed from him. In discerning the spirit
of their time, and in earnest sympathy with that
spirit, they were merely the foremost representative
men ; they merely voiced and put in action, better
than others, what the many thought and felt as
warmly and clearly as themselves ; and the grateful
multitude, remembering their words and deeds, bap-
tized itself with their name."

Such is what is termed among men of the world
the philosophical method of accounting for the Wes-
ley an movement. Setting aside, as it does, those
supernatural agencies which we, in common with the
Christian world, regard as the efficient cause of all
great movements among men, it leaves those move-
ments without any explanation save such as may be
found in the frequent use of the magical and mys-
tical word, spontaneity- This, we must say, is a
most fortunate invention of the philosophers, see-
ing that the word necessarily implies, " the quality oi
proceeding or acting from native feeling, prone-
ness or temperament, without constraint or external
force." When, therefore, they say that a certain
popular movement is spontaneous, they mean that it
originated solely in the thoughts or feelings of men,
without any external influence being brought to bear
upon them. But this use of the word, however
suited to the exigencies of a case in which they have
something to explain and no explanation to offer, we

ITINERANCY. 87

submit is neither candid nor reasonable. It is" not
candid, because the legitimate meaning of the word
does not go so far : it implies the absence of con-
straining force, but not the absence of persuasive
influence ; and it is unreasonable, because it rejects
an obvious explanation of an admitted mystery, and
bars it out by a purely fanciful barrier Surely this
distinction is easy to every mind, as it is familiar to
all experience. One may act spontaneously in ac-
cordance with the suggestions and wishes of his
friends, or against them ; and the pure and perfect
spontaneity of his action depends not at all upon the
presence or absence of this influence — indeed, has
no relation to it. All that it does imply, when pred-
icated of any action, is the absence of external force.
But here no such force is claimed. We plead not
for force, but influence. Our Methodist theology
desires no force — will have none — calls only for
Divine influence, co-operating with free-will ; and
this dead brand of spontaneity, which they hurled
into our camp, was in fact stolen from our Methodist
lire and quenched in the waters of infidel specula-
tion. As we have seen, it needs only to be laid for
a moment upon the old hearth, in order to kindle
and burn with its ancient glow and shine with its
former light.

But not content with taking the God out of the
Itinerancy, these skeptical philosophers and lovers
of worldly pleasure inveigh in set terms against
many of its provisions. "It is," they say, "the

88 ITINEEANCY.

enemy of human happiness. Its sumptuary code is of
the most deadly proscriptiveness. It forbids, at once,
the most elegant adornments, the chastest pleasures
and the most innocent amusements. It is of solemn
and funereal aspect, and all mirth dies under its
withering frown. It prohibits the dance, the thea-
ter, and even the adornment of the person ; while
vigils, prayers and fastings are its substitutes for all
the pleasure of life. It condemns its preachers to be
homeless wanderers and subjects them, with all their
followers, to a regimen of psalms, hymns and other
spiritual macerations, from which it is impossible for
them to escape, and to which it is death for them to
submit. Above all, and worse than all — for without
this they would be forced to break away from its
intolerable control — it leads them into periodical
excitements which it calls revivals, in which all the
laws of health and life are disregarded, and from
which they sometimes escape only to the couch of
the invalid, the hospital of the insane, or the more
peaceful refuge of the grave."

And once more we reply: " The Methodist Itin-
erancy the enemy of human happiness ! " Ask the
millions of witnesses who have testified, in life and
in death, that they never tasted happiness till they
found it in that communion, and that it never failed
them there : Question the myriad homes, whence the
demons of vice and crime have been banished, and
where the angels of peace and love have been called
back bv the voice of the Methodist itinerant : Ask

ITINEBANCY. 89

the ancient wilderness, noAv blossoming as the rose
with all the flowers of civilization which sprang up
in the track of the missionary : — and let their com-
mon testimony silence the slander forever And all
this tirade because, forsooth, the rules of the Itin-
erancy forbid that needless self-indulgence in profane
luxury and worldly pleasure which naturally tends
to corrupt the heart and lead it away from the pure
love and service of the Redeemer ! Long live the
General Rules, when they provoke this species of
criticism. As for revivals, the chief objection of the
world to them is candidly confessed : were it not for
the revivals, they think and say, no converts would
be won from their ranks, and they would drawback-
sliders from ours : then let the revivals go on till the
last critic is converted.

To the question suggested in the beginning of this
chapter, concerning the origin and growth of the
itinerant system, there has been returned, thus far,
only the answers of its enemies, with fair and brief
replies. Its friends, however, are ready with a dif-
ferent response, and it is but just that they should
be heard.

They think that, what especially distinguishes this
system is, the beautiful adaptation of means to ends,
which demonstrates its superiority by its unparal-
leled efficiency in the salvation of men ; the harmony
of all its parts, and the symmetry of the whole ; the
ease, quietness and uniformity with which it performs
alike the functions of its daily life, and carries on

90 ITINERANCY.

the most extended enterprises ; its apparently per-
fect adaptation to every grade of culture and capac-
ity, encouraging the smallest and feeblest, and afford-
ing scope for the most highly gifted and refined ; the
confidence with which, still preserving its unity and
integrity, it meets every change demanded by the
advancing spirit of civilization ; the freedom of the
individual itinerant, and his perfect submission
to the law which makes him part and parcel of the
grand whole ; its peculiar privileges of Christian
fellowship, in which the mingled fires of sympathy
and devotion weld all hearts to each other and to the
common cause ; the fact that it is, from its beginning
to the present time, a growth and not a creation,
and that it owes its being not to the scheming brain,
of man, but to that administration of circumstance
in which they recognize the providence of God ; and
all this, they think, is at once the evidence of its
Divine origin, and the guarantee of its perpetuity
and usefulness in the ages to come ; and if this opin
ion be enthusiastic and extravagant, it is confirmed
by the inherited convictions of three generations of
Methodists, and it should require at least as many
more, of adverse experience and belief, to unsettle
and overthrow it.

Into this great itinerant bucket, which had been
sitting for a hundred years under the caves of Heav-
en, and which was apparently already full to over-
flowing, there fell, in the autumn of 1841, the
seemingly insignificant drop, young Marvin. It

ITINERANCY. 91

seemed, indeed, then, that he was "but a drop in
the bucket;" that his coming was hardly known,
and that, failing to come, he would never have
been missed ; but all the same he had fallen fr6m
the cloud of infinite mercy, and held prisoned in the
small compass of a new young man on trial for the
itinerant ministry, the tireless energies which were
to bear him round the world and quicken the life of
a whole church.

He knew little, when he entered, even of the
requirements personal to himself, and comprehended
still less of the vast scope of Itinerancy ; yet there
was, between it and him, a vital harmony It was
as if the system and the man had been made for each
other. All that the tormer demanded, in its novices,
was that they should have " gifts and graces " and
of these Marvin possessed not only an uncommon
endowment, but a most happy combination. Intel-
ligence and sensibility, intellect and spirituality,
talents and piety were so equally poised in his soul
that the attributes could never overbalance the qual-
ities, nor the qualities carry away and dominate the
attributes ; and this was precisely what the Meth-
odist system required. It did not want a man of
more brains than piety, who would always be asking
troublesome questions, running into doctrinal here-
sies, or straying from the beaten path of itinerant
practice ; nor did it want a man of more religious
enthusiasm than sober sense, who would discredit
the Church by his spiritual vagaries. Yet such, in

92 ITINERAXCY.

greater or less degree, were many of its yourig
preachers. They required much annealing in order
to fit them for the work of the Itinerancy. It was
rare, indeed, that one could be found already pre-
pared, both by nature and grace, for the task to
which he came to devote his life. Yet such a pre-
pared and anointed one, as if specially designed for
the uses of the itinerant ministry, and for nothing
else in the world, was Enoch Mather Marvin.

On the other hand, it is quite as unusual for a
young man to find, among existing institutions, one
so perfectly adapted, both to his tastes and his
talents, as to furnish him with the very best field for
their exercise which he is able to desire or imasrine.
Most of us enter life more or less out of joint with
our institutional surroundings. There are some
things, even in our chosen pursuits, which do not
quite please us, and we are surprised that they have
not long since been changed. Time is required to
adjust our natures to them and enable us to see, as
we nearly always do later in our career, that the
changes we had crudely wished are precisely those
which would have proved most inimical to our suc-
cess. But this again was the happy fortnne of the
boy, Marvin. He found, in the Itinerancy, all that
his heart, conscience and intelligence could desire.
There was nothing in the whole system, as it struck
his first imperfect apprehension and gradually un-
folded itself to his riper discernment, which he would
have changed at any moment, if the wish had been

ITINERANCY. 93

equivalent to the deed. If he had made Methodism
for himself, he felt that he could not have made it
so much to his own satisfaction as he found it.
Hence, when he came to the Methodist itinerant min-
istry, it was like coming home ; and he experienced,
at once, the rest and the freedom which qualified him
for the highest and happiest exertion of his splendid
powers.

Itinerancy has an ancient and Scriptural origin.
Perhaps Samuel was the first or among the first re-
ligious itinerants. He went, from year to year, in
circuit to Bethel, and Gilgal, and Mispeh, and back
to Hamuli, where was his house, and regularly at
each place taught the people — offered sacrifices —
and administered the law so that he was, in fact, a
circuit preacher and circuit judge. The prophets
were accustomed to go from place to place teaching
the people — and the Divine Master himself was an
itinerant, "going about, doing good," in Judea,
Samaria and Gallilee. The twelve were sent, and
commanded, first "to go to the lost sheep of the
House of Israel," and then "into all the world,"
and subsequently the reader learns of Paul and Bar-
nabas, of Luke and Silas, of Matthew and Thad-
deus and others, all itinerating — going to and fro —
preaching the gospel, and returning again, revisiting
the places where, and the people to whom they had
preached. So Mr. Wesley did not invent or project
a system — but adopted that which the teachings of
the New Testament and the practice of the apostles

94 ITINEBANCY.

furnished to his hand — and only a partial examina-
tion will be sufficient to show that an itinerant min-
istry is Scriptural — is expedient— and has proven
itself to be wonderously successful.

Chapter $ijjtotfi.

CIRCUIT LIFE.

THE first regular circuit preaching done in Mis-
souri by any of the Methodist preachers was
done in the latter part of the year 1806 and in 1807,
by a young man named Travis — John Travis — who
was admitted on trial in the traveling connection at
a conference held at Ebenezer Meeting House, in
Greene county, Tennessee, commencing September
15th, 1806, and at the close of the Conference Ses-
sion was announced for Missouri Circuit — Western
Conference — Cumberland District, Rev William,
afterward Bishop McKendree, Presiding Elder. The
Cumberland District, as it then was, included all of
Middle and Western Tennessee, all of Southern Ken-
tucky, a part of Indiana, all of Illinois, and all the
settled portions of Missouri and Arkansas. Travis
reached the field of his future operations as soon as
practicable, labored as opportunity and ability
allowed, and reported to the next Annual Conference
two circuits with a membership of one hundred white
and six colored persons. From the time he com-

96 CIRCUIT LIFE.

menced this work to the present hour Methodism
with its circuit preachers and circuit preaching, and
with all other of its characteristics has been more or
less prominent among all the other denominations
and ecclesiastical operations in the State. Year aftei
year its ministers were regularly appointed ; year
after year they toiled with varied success, and year
after year as the population increased, the work en-
larged, until October, 1841, thirty-five years after
Travis had entered the State, when there were in
the Missouri Conference, 77 traveling preachers, 4
superannuated and 177 local preachers with 14,801
white, 1,399 colored, and 411 Indian members. The
Missouri Conference at that time included the State
of Missouri and also some missionary stations among
the Indians west of the State.

In the year last named ( 1841 ) at a conference held
in Palmyra, commencing October the 6th, Enoch M.
Marvin, with fourteen others, was "admitted on
trial in traveling connection." Of these fourteen
others — J. H. Headlee, Win. M. Rush, Richard
Holt and Joseph Dines still live, the first and second
active in the itinerant work ; the third and fourth in
the local ranks. The name of John Read, one of
the fifteen, disappears from the minutes at the end
of the first year. Ludwig S. Jacoby, another of the
number, had a brilliant and successful career. He
was one of the first, if not the very first, native born
German that became a Methodist preacher in this
country. A man of learning, of decided ability,

C1BCUIT LIFE. 97

deep and fervent piety, he labored successfully —
though against no little opposition — among his coun-
trymen in Missouri, subsequently returned to Ger-
many where, with others, he laid deep and wide the
foundations of Methodism on which an annual con-
ference has been erected, and after a number of years
he came back to Missouri and continued his work
until his death, which occurred in the city of St.
Louis only a few years ago.

David W Pollock was another of the same class
of whom honorable mention should be made. Fe\v
men have labored in Missouri who in the same length
of time gained the respect or won the confidence and
affections of the people more than did he. From
his admission to the traveling connection in 1841 to
the conference held in October, 1849, his labors were
in Missouri, and largely in the city of St. Louis.
Few men of his age excelled him in pulpit efforts or
in pastoral fidelity and efficiency In the latter year
(1849) he was appointed missionary to California,
as one of the first three missionaries sent by the M.
E. Church, South, to that field. There he labored
until his health failed, and at the session of the St.
Louis Conference for 1852 he was transferred to the
Alabama Conference, where, after having been sta-
tioned in Tuscaloosa and also serving for a short time
as agent for the Bible Society, he died in peace.
His brethren of the Alabama Conference said of
him : « ' He was a remarkably sweet-spirited man
and a very eloquent preacher."

98 CIRCUIT LIFE.

At the session of the Missouri Conference, com-
mencing September 27th, 1843, thirteen of the class
of fifteen admitted on trial two years before, were
received into full connection — John Read's name
having disappeared as noted, and B. F Love was
continued on trial. At the end of the fourth year
John Glanville was reported as superannuated, and
Joseph Dines as located. The next year Manoah
Richardson was reported as superannuated, and thus
one by one they passed from the itinerant work until
Marvin, Rush and Headlee alone were left of the
class of fifteen.

John A. Tutt, a member of the class, continued
to labor in Missouri until 1849, when he died in
peace. The Conference said of him : "He was a
man of fine mind ; a respectable scholar ; a good
preacher, and one of great purity of purpose."

Much might be written in regard to others of the
class did such come within the design of the present
work. They were men good and true and fulfilled
their mission, and the larger portion have gone to
their reward.

It may be proper in this connection to sketch in a
general way the manner of life upon which these
men entered at the time of their admission on trial
in the annual conference — the circuit life they led.

Of course, the distinguishing feature of the itin-
erancy par eminence is, its circuit system. This is
its germinal point, out of which all the rest has
grown. Those who understand and love the Metho-

CIBGUIT LIFE. 99

dist economy, wisely appreciate and cherish this as
the strong arm of its service, and most vital of all
the conditions of its permanent success. If we are
not mistaken there is a growing tendency, in the later
adherents of Methodism, to underrate and depreciate
the circuit work. It is seen in the fact that, among
preachers and people, the passage from the circuit to
the station is getting to be thought a step in advance —
a promotion. The effect of this opinion, if it shall
come finally to reach, and prevail in the minds of
those who direct the work, will be disastrous to the
system and presage its speedy downfall. It will be
analogous, in its effects, to the impression, in an
army of invasion, that all the posts of honor lie in
the rear

Now, in every sense and for every reason, such an
opinion is contrary to the fact. The true sphere of
the Methodist preacher is the circuit ; among the
highest, most honorable and responsible offices in the
Methodist Church, is the charge of circuit work.
The conditions of this work, if they could be fully
and fairly set forth, without any suppression or ex-
aggeration, would read like a romance, and would
attract and thrill every heart and command the hom-
age of the most exalted intelligence. To be in
charge of such a work is like standing where worlds
are made and aiding in the splendid process ; it is
looking upon, handling and molding the very sources
of itinerant life. The factors of Methodism's
grandest uses pass through the hands of the humble

100 CIBiJUIT LIFE.

circuit-rider, and not unfrequently catch their first
inspiration from his thought and receive their final
impress from his temper. It is his business to dis-
cover them in germ ; develop them in capacity, and
kindle in their souls those fires of devotion which are
destined to warm and illumine the world.

Let us see if, with the pencil of naked fact, and
without a tinge of imaginative or fanciful coloring,
we can sketch a picture of this life which shall appeal
with the power of simple truth to all who have ever
known it, and at the same time attract the sympa-
thetic regards of the untraveled many who, linger-
ing in the homes of ancestral religion, have never
looked upon the wonders of the new world of Meth-
odism.

Our young itinerant, then, without learning or
experience, but called of God and obedient to tl :;
call, is ready to go forth to his work. He hi.s
received information of his acceptance by the con-
ference and assignment to a particular field of labor
for the current ecclesiastical }Tear, and has made his
preparations accordingly He has gotten his horse,
saddle, bridle, saddlebags, overcoat or blanket, um-
brella, hymn-book, Discipline and Bible. Every one
of these items is worthy of particular mention, be-
cause it cost him care and pains. As for the horse,
he did not see where it was to come from. He had
neither the animal, nor the money or credit to pur-
chase it. But one morning he found it, with all its
necessary furniture, at his father's door; and surely

CIRCUIT LIFE. 101

he was right in thinking that the Lord sent it, though
ho knew that it came by the hands of a good old
man of the neighborhood. With this encouragement
the remainder of his scanty outfit is soon in readi-
ness, and with a final pressure of his father's hand,
a tenderer good-bye to his weeping mother, and a
last look on the little world of home, he mounts his
horse and sets out to find his circuit. He has more
than a hundred miles to travel, has but the vaguest
conception of the route, and must obtain particular
directions as he can upon the way He expects, with
diligence and without serious error to reach, on the
evening of the third day, the house of a brother who
has been particularly named and described to him as
one able and willing to furnish him with all needed in-
formation concerning his work. For intervening ne-
cessities, he must depend upon chance hospitality. As
he rides along through the crisp October air, what a
strrnge medley is his mind ! He asks himself whither
he is going, and for what purpose. Can it be that
he is actually a Methodist traveling preacher, on his
way to his work? Then he reviews, in memory, his
conversion, consecration and call to the ministry-
Are these genuine? and will they not fail him under
the burden of trials and responsibilities which he is
going to encounter? For a moment, he is full of
trepidness and doubt ; but he lifts his eyes and heart
to Heaven for Divine guidance and authentication of
his mission, and the instant testimony of the Spirit
so fills his heart with celestial peace, that it runs over

102 CIRCUIT LIFE.

at his his eyes in grateful and happy tears. Then
he breaks into song —

"Jesus, I my cross have taken,

All to leave and follow thee :
Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,

Thou, from hence, my all shalt be.

Perish, every fond ambition —

All I've sought, or hoped, or known;

Yet, how rich is my condition!
God and heaven are still my own."

and, moved by the swelling emotions of his heart,
his voice, low and trembling at first, gathers power
and volume, till the woods around him ring with the
melody of his battle-hymn. Now, indeed, he is all
courage and will, on iirc for endeavor and eager for
the coming struggle. And so, with alternate prayer
and hymns, he beguiles the un weary way

Anon, his mood changes. What is it, distinctly,
that he has to say to those people when he shall
come to them?—- what message from God has he
to give them ? Then he reviews his small sermonic
treasures, and wonders which of the two or three
texts from which he has already spoken will be the
most appropriate for the inauguration of his great
enterprise. In his uncertainty he runs them suc-
cessively through his mind, reciting aloud, in the
security of his solitary way, what he fancies are their
happiest passages. Unable to decide, he refers the
question, at last, to the inspiration of the hour and
the guidance of the Spirit.

Then he wonders how the people will receive him.

CIRCUIT LIFE. 103

Will they be glad or sorry that he is come? May
they not have been looking for an older and more
experienced preacher, or expecting some particular
favorite, and so be disappointed, and manifest their
displeasure in coldness to him? If this should be
the case, he does not exactly see how he is going, to
stand it. It will be a hard strugo-le at the best and,
if they should prove unwilling to hear him — to have
him for their pastor — he greatly fears that he can
find nothing to say or do for them ; though he longs
to labor for their welfare, and feels his heart quite
deeply interested in their happiness. For are they
not his people? Has not the Church given them to
his spiritual care and oversight? Already, he yearns
for them in prayer. And they ! do they think of
him as he thinks of them? Are they looking and
longing for his coming, and trying to fancy what
manner of man he will be ? As this thought passes
through his mind he tries to look at himself in the
glass of memory, in order to form some estimate of
the impression which his first appearance will pro-
duce ; but in this he can no more succeed than can
we who are older and have tried it oftener than he.

As he draws near the end of his journey, to which
his frequent inquiries of passing wayfarers, and the
minute directions thus elicited, have kept him in the
right path, his interest and anxiety are redoubled.
It is the last day, and the clay declines to evening ;
for the sun is out of sight in the West, and the
shadows are deepening around him. It seems to him

104 CIBCUIT LIFE.

hours since they told him, in answer to his latest
question, that the house of Brother A. was but four
miles distant, and was the first which he would find
lying immediately upon the road. His tired horse,
seeming to sympathize with the impatience of his
rider, pricks up his ears and quickens his pace. Is
that a light flashing for a moment through the gath-
ering gloom? Yes, he sees it again, steadier, though
fitful — it is the gleam of a hearth-fire shining through
the open door of a rude log-cabin. At last he has
reached the home of Brother A. A rough -looking
man, chopping fire-wood before the door, suspends
his labor as he rides up and waits apparently to be
addressed. Yes, he is Brother A. ; and is this the
new preacher whom they have been expecting for
several days? He is glad to see him — bids him
" 'Light, and come in ;" an invitation with which
he willingly complies. The wife and mother gives
him a second welcome, frank and cordial, though
brief, and the eager children press around him to
make his acquaintance and obtain his notice. It is
plain they are accustomed to the sight of preachers,
in that house ; for everything goes on as if he were
there for the fiftieth time, instead of the first. In-
deed, before bedtime, he has learned so much about
his work from Brother A., who turns out to be
a steward and class-leader, that he seems to himself
to be an old preacher instead of a new one, and
to be quite at home and in his place. At last a
BibJe is brought out and placed, with a candle new-

G1BCUIT LIFE. 105

ly-lighted — for they have sat and talked by the fire-
light hitherto — at his side, and he is asked to «« have
prayers." A lesson is read, they all unite in sing-
ing a familiar hymn, and then he remembers, all at
once, that he is kneeling for the first time at God's
altar, with a family of His people. The thought
touches him and finds expression in the trembling
fervor of his utterance, and its effect is seen in the
shining faces of his hosts as they bid him good-night,
not precisely at the door of his chamber, for they
can not accompany him so far, for to this he must
ascend by a ladder, and enter through a square hole
in the ceiling. There, in one of the two rooms
which the cabin contains, he finds a chair and com-
fortable bed, from which he can look out, through
chinks in the broken roof, upon the blue sky and
starry heavens. He finds himself wondering dream-
ily what the guests do when it rains, but before he
can answer the question to himself, he is asleep.

The next day, as he finds, there is an appointment
for him to preach at the neighboring church ; for the
circuit is large and the numerous appointments can
not all be filled on the Lord's Day, To this place
he is conducted by his hosts, and there he finds the
first stated assembly of his people. It is unusually
large, he is assured, on account of the eagerness of
the people to see and hear the new preacher. This
information prompts him to number them, and he
finds, upon sober count, including himself and the
children, just twenty-three souls upon the ground.

106 CIRCUIT LIFE.

To these he discourses, with all the zeal ;,nd ability
of which he is capable, from his favorite text, and,
at the close of this service, holds a class-meeting.
This last, he discovers, is expected of him as often
as he preaches — it is the old Methodist fashion, the
fashion of the first preachers. He finds, on trial,
that it more than compensates him for the additional
labor ; that it refreshes him, and even exalts him ; and
above all, that it gives him a spiritual acquaintance
with these members of his flock to which fre could
not have attained by months of ordinary intercourse ;
as if the hearts of preacher and people, having been
first heated by the sermon, were afterwards welded
together by the interchange of Christian experience.
To conclude all, he is transferred to the care and
commended to the hospitality of a second brother,
and so passed from hand to hand — all cordial and
kind — till he has completed the tour of his four-
weeks' circuit, and filled the whole round of its twen-
ty-four or twenty -five appointments.

He has found it no easy task. His path has been
obstructed, in more than one instance, by physical
obstacles of no light difficulty and peril. He has had
to ford bridgeless streams, and to swim where no ford
was, rather than miss an appointment. He has been
wet and cold and dreary He has spent uncomfort-
able nights following laborious days, and arisen on
the morrow to new toils and hardships. From these
scenes he has passed to the abodes of culture, refine-
ment, and even luxury ; for a large circuit includes

CIRCUIT LIFE. 107

all ranks; and his welcome here, if more polished,
has been as cordial as that which he found in the
cabins of the poor. Everywhere they have greeted
him as the Sent of God. At his Sunday appoint-
ments, the neighborhoods have turned out for miles
around and given him audiences that have first fright-
ened but afterward inspired him. He has spoken
with strange and thrilling unction, and strong men
have wept and trembled under his words. He has
found the seat Of his power ; and now he feels the
ground under him as firmly as he clasps the Hand
above him. His confidence has grown already to ha-
bitual self-poise and ease. He is no longer the shy,
awkward boy, but the self-possessed and ready man.
To his own consciousness he has learned, thought,
and felt more, in the last four weeks, than in all his
previous life.

Thus he comes once more, at the close of his first
round, to the cabin of Brother and Sister A. They
are expecting him and are hungering and thirsting
for his coming. They have neither forgotten nor
neglected him. He has seen their faces in several
of his Sunday congregations, and pressed their hands
in more than one class-meeting ; and already they
have learned to love him with a strange fervor of
tenderness and admiration. They are at the door,
with eager faces, looking the way that he should
come. Even the children, hearing father and mother
talk so much of the coming of the preacher, have
caught the expectant fever, and are perched on con-

108 CIBCUIT LIFE.

venient elevations or hurrying down the road to meet
him ; for there indeed he comes at last, and is re-
ceived with such looks and hand-clasps of loving
welcome as startle him to tears ; for scarcely could
a holy angel be more honored or revered. And who
can paint the rapture of their sweet communion, or
the melted fervor of their united devotions? Thus,
throughout his second round, he finds that the har-
vest is already come, and that he is reaping in joy
the tender regards which he sowed in tears.

And now there comes a salutary break in the mo-
notony of joyous labor. The Quarterly Meeting is
at hand, and the Presiding Elder is here to hold it.
Grave, stern, watchful, his scrutinizing look puts our
hero not a little in awe. Then the assemblage is
impressive. It is Saturday morning, and from every
direction come class-leaders, stewards, exhort ers,
local preachers — all the official forces of the circuit —
to pass in review under the eye of the experienced
leader who is there to inspect them and their work.
The morning discourse follows — strong, impressive,
odorous with doctrine and stern with discipline : our
youthful preacher trembles where he sits, under the
utterances of this Man of God. The Quarterly
Conference is assembled, with the stern monitor of
Methodism, just risen from his knees, in the chair.
That Chair — what a source of fulminating lightning,
thunder, and rain it seems to him : The reports are
up ; characters and actions are under review ; and
criticism, warning, censure, commendation, appeal,
stir the. Conference to its depths.

CIBCTJIT LIFE. 109

.This ordeal past, a worse is at hand. He must
preach to the assembled official representatives of all
his congregations, and in the presence and hearing
of the Presiding Elder. His voice trembles, his
limbs totter, his vision reels. He is thinking more
of the stern censor behind him than of his message
and all his other auditors. Stumbling and stammer-
ing he goes on, till some look or tone of sympathy
in part arrests his embarrassment and impresses his
heart with the true significance -and responsibility of
his position. Then, indeed, he forgets the Presiding
Elder and thinks only of lost sinners and an all-
powerful Saviour; and his brain, working all the
freer and more vigorously for its recent baptism of
confusing blood, he preaches as he never preached
before. A hundred vocal responses answer to his
thoughts and confirm his appeals, and among all
these the loudest and the most fervent come from
the man behind him. As at last, exhausted and
overcome he sits down, it is in the midst of a rain of
tears and a tempest of bursting sobs and echoing
shouts. The Presiding Elder knows what to do.
Seats are promptly prepared and soon crowded
with weeping penitents. Of these several are con-
verted and, springing up in ecstacy, are received in
the arms of weeping and. rejoicing friends. Cries of
joy and grief, voices of sympathy and exhortation,
hymns of praise and triumph mingle in one mass of
bewildering sound ; but there is no real confusion ;
it is merely the din of the first grand battle ; for the
revival has begun, and these are its earliest fruits.

110 CIBCU1T LIFE.

The Sabbath morning breaks clear and bright.
At nine o'clock, the Love-Feast. Our hero never
witnessed such a scene before. The crowded room :
the tender, expectant faces ; the touching devotional
solemnity ; the simple ceremonial of the handed
bread and water ; the narratives of individual expe-
rience, so different and yet so like, and seemingly
strung upon the sacred melodies floating through
the air like pearls upon a silver thread ; all is strange,
beautiful, and new The things which most impress
him are, the fervent sincerity of the narratives and
the variety and felicity of the illustrations. One
grey-haired man begins his address with, "Twenty
years ago I struck the Eock ! " Another, a colored
woman and a servant, says, "When I sweep the
house, and the door is open, and the sun is shining
in, I see the air filled with dust ; but when I close
the door, though there may be a great deal more
dust in the air, I can not see it. Just so it is with
my poor heart: When the door is open, and the
Sun of Righteousness is shining in, I can see it full
of sin ; but when the door is shut, though there may
be a great deal more sin there, I can not see it."
Such testimonies as these, with the trembling utter-
ances of the young converts — their incoherent words
and transparent meaning — interpreted by a common
experience, record themselves indelibly upon our
hero's mind and insure his cordial and permanent
appreciation of the Love-Feast.

The remaining services of the day and night

CIRCUIT LIFE. Ill

deepen and confirm the revival, and the departing
brethren bear its tidings and spirit to all the other
congregations of his charge. From point to point
of his work, the fire spreads and burns till the Avhole
circuit is in a flame ; and he, flying from neighbor-
hood to neighborhood, feels that it would be glorious
to die in such a battle of the Lord. The result is,
such a harvest of souls as long enriches the Church,
and such a knitting of him to the hearts of his peo-
ple that time can not sunder the tie ; and many of
them remember him with gratitude and speak of him
with tenderness to the latest hour of their lives.
The remainder of the Conference year is devoted to
securing the fruits of this splendid victory and hold-
ing fast the ground thus hardly won.

Such, in brief, with a thousand circumstantial
variations which we can not stop to notice, is the
life of the Methodist circuit-rider We have dealt
with but its earliest and feeblest phase, as exempli-
fied in the career of a youthful itinerant on his first
circuit; and yet, even thus imperfectly set forth, its
dignity and importance will be recognized by all who
have eyes to see.

This is one side of the picture. There is another —
a darker and gloomier side, whereon is mapped out
numberless cold receptions — chilling looks — freezing
manners — which depress, discourage, dishearten and
almost crush the young preacher On this other side
is also mapped unnumbered trials, difficulties, pri-
vations, afflictions of body and mind — perils in the

112 CIRCUIT LIFE.

forest — perils by flood — perils by exposure — perils
by open enemies — perils by false friends — all going
to make up a picture of real life that no tongue can
tell, no pen describe. A stranger among strange
people, many of whom regard him with suspicion
and still more look on him with cold indifference and
pass him with marked neglect — and still others
openly and coarsely abuse and deride him — the
homeless and almost or quite penniless young
preacher soon finds there are shades as well as
lights in the itinerant life — finds it far from being
all sunshine — and is often left in doubt whether he
is not compelled to look on and contemplate the
dark side of the picture much oftener and much
longer than on the brighter and better side ; so that
although he is the bearer of "precious seed" he
does literally "go forth weeping."

But on this side the picture there is no need to
dwell.

And such a youthful itinerant was Marvin when,
in the Fall of 1841, he was received on trial in the
Missouri Conference and assigned to the Grundy
Mission, in the Richmond District, without a col-
league and with Wm. W Redman as his presiding
elder. This mission, as appears from the Minutes
of the Conference, was in an untried field ; and the
temper and endurance of the young man were thus
put, in the outset of his career, to a test of uncom-
mon severity — he was to try his hand on the extreme
front of the Methodist line, and see how much ter-

C1BCUIT LIFE. 113

ritory he could conquer from the enemy The re-
sult vindicated the wisdom of his appointment, and
he reported, at the close of his first conference year,
an actual membership of one hundred and thirty-one.
How much of the boy's life-blood went into this fine
harvest it is impossible to say, but certainly he did
not spare himself.

Such were the warmth and enthusiasm which char-
acterized his presiding elder's report, at the Confer-
ence of 1842,. of the cheerfulness and efficiency of
his first year's work, and so few were the men to
whom that kind of work could safely be entrusted,
that it was thought best to employ him at least one
more year in the labor of a pioneer ; and he was
accordingly sent to another virgin field in the same
District, distinguished as the Oregon Mission. With
equal zeal and fidelity, and with increased experience,
he spent another year of hardship and privation in
this most delicate and difficult work, and at its close
reported to the Conference one hundred and fifty-
seven members.

At the Conference of 1843 he was elected and
ordained deacon and placed in charge of Liberty
Circuit, still in the same District and under the same
presiding elder. From this work he reports a very
large addition to the membership of the Church ;
though, from the circumstance that the members are
joined with those from Weston in the minutes, it is
impossible to give the exact number due to Liberty.

From the Conference of 1845, where he was elected

114 CIRCUIT LIFE.

and ordained elder, he was sent, after a year of sta-
tion life, to the Weston Circuit, with George D.
Tolls as junior preacher and Wm. Ketron as presid-
ing elder From this work, notwithstanding the
losses through disaffection growing1 out of the recent
separation of the Churches North and South, he still
reports a net gain of fifty-eight to the membership
of the Church in his charge.

Again, after two years of station life, during the
Conference years of 1848 and 1849, he was in charge
of Monticello Circuit, in Hannibal District, and with
Jacob Lannius as his presiding elder. The first of
these years he was alone in this work, but during the
second he had Win. M. Wood for his junior. Here
again he overcomes the depletion which is going on
in consequence of the separation, and reports a net
gain of one hundred and one for the two years of
his administration.

His last circuit, to which he was sent from the
Conference of 1851 after another year of station life,
was St. Charles, in the district of the same name,
with S. W Cope as his junior and Wm. Patton as
his presiding elder. Here he still shows a net in-
crease of seven in the white membership, but loses
one hundred and eight of the colored. The colored
people were resolutely going to those whom they
esteemed better friends. Not a few of our white
members went in the same direction during all these
years, and it is not a little to Marvin's credit that he
was able to preserve and even increase our strength

CIRCUIT LIFE. 115

in every circuit field committed to his charge through-
out this trying time.

Whoever glances with an intelligent and thought-
full eye, over the statistical reports of our own or
anv other church, can not fail to observe such an
apparent general regularity in the ebb and flow of
the members, registering alternate gains and losses,
as to lead to the impression that they are under the
restraint of some mysterious law which forbids their
constant tendency in a single direction. This seem-
ing nrystery, however, vanishes the moment we enter
patiently upon the track of any individual factor in
the general product. Then, indeed, we find that
this man is almost uniformly successful or unsuc-
cessful ; that the number committed to his charge is
regularly increased or diminished ; and hence that,
in proportion as the class which he represents pre-
ponderates in the body to which he belongs, will the
general result" be plus or minus.

It will thus be seen that Marvin spent seven years
of his ministerial life in charge of circuit work, and
that he was uniformly successful in that work. It is
in order that the Church may derive from it those
lessons of practical wisdom which it is calculated to
impart, that we have preferred to place in a single
group these years of his circuit life, rather than
follow the chronological order of his successive ap-
pointments ; and it is thus, we may say here once for
all, that we propose to deal with the other materials
of his history It is, in our opinion, by these sepa-

116 CIRCUIT LIFE.

rate and distinct views of the man, from each point
of his relation to the Church and the times, that we
can obtain the best and most faithful understanding
of his character and life.

(tthuytix gintliu

STATI ON LIFE .

A METHODIST station is simply one of the
regular appointments of a circuit, which has
grown strong enough in numbers, wealth and liber-
ality to support its own pastors without the aid of
the others, and which has therefore assigned to it
the exclusive services of a member of the Confer-
ence, who is thence styled the station preacher, in
order to distinguish him from those other members
of the Conference Avho are employed in circuit work.
It follows, hence, that the circuits are the rule of
Methodist organization, and stations its occasional
exceptions. Not unfrequently it happens, that the
erection of a circuit-appointment into a station is
premature, and unfortunate for both itself and the
constituent body of which it was a member. Of
course it is the strongest appointment on a circuit
which aspires to be, and does actually become, a
station. This transition, when it is the result of
normal and healthy growth, is easy and natural : the
chief appointment is merely left off the plan of the

118 H TA TION LIFE.

circuit, which goes on quite as well, and often, in-
deed, better, without it. The infant station is stim-
ulated by new responsibilities to larger labors, and
the whole Church is thus benefited by the change.

But sometimes the impulse to station life grows
out of something like morbid selfishness on the part
of the strong appointment, which, in point of fact,
is not nearly so strong as it fancies itself. It has
grown tired of bearing; the burden of its weaker sis-
ters on the circuit, and aspires to keep house on its
own separate account. Besides, it wants Sunday-
preaching, and preaching every Sunday, and prayer
and class-meetings through the week. Over and
above all, it wants a preacher of its very own, for
whose services and attentions there shall be no legit-
imate competition in other quarters, and sometimes
(for Methodist life has its leap-years) it has gone so
far as to fix its heart on the man of its choice, and
even propose to him, in advance of the parental
sanction of Conference and the presiding elder.
Then, when the hasty experiment is tried, its burden
is found too heavy to be borne. It is not nearly so
pleasant in experience as in anticipation. The
charm of novelty is gone from the preacher, and he
lacks, perhaps, that maturity of menial resource
which would qualify him to bear the drain of con-
stant ministrations to the same people, without be-
coming trite and commonplace. Besides, he may
have faults, which were not apparent till brought out
by this nearer view, and it may be that chief among

STATION LIFE. 119

these, and that which aggravates if it does not create
most of the others, is the amount of money which
it requires to support him. Thus, taken altogether,
the people of the new station arc not happy in the
possession of their will. And their discontent is felt
and shared by the preacher — felt as a wound and
shared as a resentment. He is, indeed, cruelly dis-
appointed in the results of this experiment. He
thought that he was making a step forward, and,
behold, he has slipped many steps backward ! He
had supposed himself advancing from labor to com-
parative repose, and from obscurity to renown ; but
he finds this dream of his imagination justly inter-
preted by its contraries : the circuit labor was light,
compared with the exhausting toil of the station ;
and he has lost repute as a preacher, for the reason
— which he understands better than anybody else —
that he has lost power in preaching. The secret of
his old, moving magnetism of utterance seems to
have vanished mysteriously from his grasp. He
feels like Sampson, shorn of his strength while
sleeping, and waking to struggle vainly with the
cords which formerly coilld not for one moment have
bound him.

And his peace has gone with his strength. No-
body seems especially to love or care for him as
formerly The sisters, it is true, receive him polite-
ly when he goes on his pastoral rounds ; but he can
not help seeing that his visit interrupts their domes-
tic industries, and that in heart they wish him away

120 STATION LIFE.

The brethren give him a hastv nod when he calls at
their places of business, and with a " Pray excuse
me, I am engaged," turn to their work and leave
him with a realizing sense that he is not particularly
wanted just then and there. He has been used to
the warmth of the circuit greeting, and this chills
him. He remembers, but a little while ago The was
on the circuit then), when the people, who now
scarcely stop to greet him in passing, and who shun
his ministry, or make it the occasion of their most
refreshing slumbers, came out 'with nods and
becks, and wreathed smiles " to honor his approach,
when friendly lights shone in their eyes, and their
warm hands leaped to meet the pressure of his own ;
and when they hung upon his words as if they had
been oracles. He does not realize that this shock to
his feelings is nothing but the effect of passing from
the warm bath of the circuit to the cold douche of
the station. He is sick, forlorn, discouraged, mis-
erable, and, when Conference comes, joins very heart-
ily with the people of his station in the request that
they may both be sent back to the circuit where they
belong.

But the ill-effects of this rash experiment do not
end here. Indeed, they are permanently unfortun-
ate, both for the work and the men. It turns out
that the forsaken appointments have proved too weak
to sustain their former burden, and have broken
down in an effort disproportioned to their strength,
and which should never have been required of them.

S TA TION LIFE. 121

The result is, suffering on both sides, aggravated by
discontent and heart-burning. The preachers are
dissatisfied because they are not paid, and in their
hearts they blame alike the circuit which has not
paid them, and the Conference which sent them
where they could not be paid. The people, on their
side, feel that they, too, have been wronged. They are
angry with those who abandoned them in order to
aspire to the dignity of a station — with the Confer-
ence which has burdened them as heavily, thus bro-
ken and crippled, as in the time of their full strength,
and with their own pastors, for the double reason
that they are at once the representatives of the Con-
ference and the weights by which the circuit has
been oppressed. All this does not augur favorably
for the future of that charge.

Nor can the matter be set quite right by the resto-
ration of the statu quo through the action of the
administrative powers. It is not with altogether a
good grace that the dismantled station returns to its
place in the circuit. This is a forced eating of hum-
ble-pie which is by no means relished. There is
much grimness in the humor with which Bro. B.,
the Nestor of the circuit, greets their representatives
in the first quarterly Conference : " Oh, yes ; wanted
to be a station, did you, and couldn't keep it up?
Welcome home, Brethren." So there are soreness,
unkind feeling: and lonor-endurinsj friction in the once
superbly prosperous and firmly united charge ; as
every society on the circuit is ready, on occasion, to

122 STATION LIFE.

fling; iii the face of the fallen station some cutting"
allusion to its escapade. In some sad instance, this
feeling has been known to proceed to such a length
as to drive the unfortunate appointment to other
futile attempts at independent life, which have result-
ed in its degradation from the first rank on the cir-
cuit to a permanently inferior place.

The preacher, too, when he has finished, with a
sense of inexpressible relief, his unhappy year of
station life, has by no means heard or felt the last
of his transient dignity The other preachers in the
district know all about the result long before the
year is ended, and are ready at Conference with
their " quips and quirks," their ironical compliments
and sly inuendoes, to turn this great annual feast of
a Methodist preacher's life into a season of painful
mortification to him. He finds, too, when the ap-
pointments are read, that it is by no means all a
joke, that he has lost character and standing with
the appointing powers, and that it will probably be
long; before he can recover all that he has thrown
away in his childish essay Nor is this unjust. He
is esteemed according to his work ; and having
•failed and wrought harm, rather than good, in a
position of his own choosing, he cannot complain if
his brethren deem him comparatively unfitted for
places of exalted trust and grave responsibility.
The real wrong lies in the indulgence or indifference

CD (_y

of those appointing powers which furnished him,
and the other parties concerned in the folly, with

S TA TIOJST LIFE. 123

the opportunity of inflicting upon themselves a
lasting injury

As has been said, station life under the best and
most favorable circumstances — under the only cir-
cumstances indeed in which it should exist in our
economy — is the result of natural and healthful
growth. The change is then permanent, and the
station is a station always. But even at the best it
is a strain, violent and lasting, upon our economy,
and the occasion of much friction in the working of
the administrative powers of our conferences and
their cabinets. It is even questioned, by many wise
and thoughtful lovers of Methodism, if the Church
have not made a mistake in establishing them under
any circumstances, if she would not do better, even
now, to turn all the stations into circuits according
to the British-Wesleyan method, furnishing each
with a numerical pastoral strength proportioned to
its abilitv

Upon this affirmative much might be well and
fairly urged. The stations must possess, in process
of time, a numerous and wealthy membership ; and
if to this rule there be occasional exceptions, these
exceptions constitute in themselves the strongest
possible impeachment of the wisdom which insti-
tutes and encourages what is thus liable to become
a dead factor in our economy Methodism should
have no such barren fig-trees to provoke the Mas-
ter's curse. But if they do become wealthy, re-
fined and polished, they are in just this proportion

124 S TA TION L 1FE.

isolated from the circuit work and liable to be
estranged from its sympathy. They come to re-
quire a different, and what they regard as a higher,
order of pulpit and pastoral service. They are not
always willing to take such as the Conference may
send them. They wish to know their men, and to
approve and select them beforehand. It sometimes
occurs, that a whole Conference even cannot supply
their single demand, and they must import from
abroad some preacher whose shining reputation has
dazzled their eyes in the distance. And all this,
though it bears hardly on the very life of the itiner-
ancy, the appointing power feels itself obliged to
sanction.

As a consequence, the preacher thus imported is
sometimes a man apart and not in full sympathy
or fellowship with the Conference of which he is a
nominal member. The other members of the Con-
ference into which the stranger has come, in obedi-
ence to the call of a single church, too often regard
it as a slight on them, and feelings not the most
pleasant nor of the most christian-like character are
indulged. That this ought not to be so, is admit-
ted, but that it is often the case cannot be denied.
Who has not witnessed it, while many a " transfer "
has been made to feel it, no matter how pure or
how honorable his motives and purposes may have
been ?

Manv such an one has been made to feei that he
was a foreigner and an alien, and the interest he

STATION LIFE. 125

might otherwise have felt in the general work of the
Conference, is lacking. He has been made to feel
that he was not at home — that he had come for a
special service, and when that was accomplished he
must depart for some other field, where a similar
service might be required. Thus there is a tend-
ency to grow up in our economy a class of men
different from the great body of the preachers, who
are not identified with them in a common work, who
are not in strongest sympathy- The tendency is to
cherish a class, known and distinguished as the
' * station-preachers," permanently attached to no
Conference, but flitting hither and thither, already
becoming numerous, and likely to become more so
as long as the popular stations are multiplied. It
cannot be that, in such a matter, the supply should
ever prove unequal to the demand.

But the effect of the station institute is likely to
affect the individual churches not less than it affects
the preachers. The rich and successful station feels
itself exalted above the poor and struggling circuit.
And what could be more natural than this feeling?
Is it not the admired and flattered of all? Are not
its superb appointments and gorgeous apparel the
wonder and the envy of the other churches ? Are
not its homes of elegance and luxury ranked among
the almost fabulous marvels of the country fireside ?
Is it not the object of clerical rivalries and the desire
of every preacher's heart? Are not bishops and
councils its servants, und may they not be trusted to

126 STATION LIFE.

do its bidding at any cost of inconvenience to them-
selves or the common work? Then, being so wealthy
and important, it may safely compete with other town
and city churches in the race of fashion. Its sons
and daughters must be polished by the dance and
refined by the stage ; and its congregations, where
erst might be seen the plain old Methodist bonnet,
must become halls for the competitive display of
gorgeous toilets. Little fear of discipline in the
case. Their pastor knows too well how far he can
count upon the endorsement of his official Board to
venture upon experiments of this kind. Is it sur-
prising that, under these influences, the station
should become arrogant and haughty, and look down
with pity or contempt upon her plain and homely
sisters, the country circuits?

But, if Methodism should so grow and prosper in
a given community that two or more stations are
established there, it might reasonably be expected
1;hat at least these churches, sustaining to each other
the relation of mother and daughter, or sisters to each
other and daughters to a common mother, would be
mutually attached by the closest and tenderest ties,
and would all strive diligently for the welfare of
each and for the common good, so as to counteract,
to some extent, the injurious effect of their compara-
tive isolation from the Church at large? Now, is this
really and truly the case in those towns and cities of
our work where stations are in the plural number?
Is it not rather true, that even here fashion affects

STATION LIFE. 127

the temper of churches just as it spoils the natural
affections of families ; that these nearly related
churches do not love each other as they should, that
there springs up, very early in the history of their
common life, a feeling of jealous estrangement in
the heart of each, which mars or renders almost im-
practicable any enterprise for a common welfare
that depends upon their mutual and cordial co-
operation? This may be a sad truth, but those who
best know our city work and have been most heavily
burdened by its responsibilities can tell how sadly
true it often is : and in the meantime all mav infer,
from this and other quite apparent truths, the char-
acter and tendency of the station institute as it relates
to our common prosperity It would not be difficult
to show, by facts and figures, if such application
were not too pointed for a work like this, instances
where Methodism has either stood still or declined in
strength during a period in which, by the employ-
ment of the ordinary energies of circuit life, it is
reasonable to believe it might have doubled, trebled
or even quadrupled its original force.

From all this it may be seen that the hardest
test of a Methodist preacher's character and worth
is to be found in station life. Ay, and blessed are
those preachers who have never borne its strain or
felt its heartache. They have escaped from they
know not what perils and disasters, by their fortunate
absence from those fields where the strongest and
bravest, if he win a victory, must purchase it with
some costly drops of his life's best blood.

128 STATION LIFE.

The man who meets this test and bears it well, is
not one of many. If he carry with him to the sta-
tion and p reserve while there — intact, or without
serious or fatal deterioration — the simplicity, purity,
and fervor of his circuit life ; if his warmth be neither
frozen nor permanently chilled by the long contact
with habitual coldness ; if he keep the same rule of
Christian sobriety, frequent and earnest prayer, spir-
itual conversation and all holy living in the station as
on the circuit ; if he suffer not the revival-fire to be
quenched in his bosom by the ceaseless flow of triv-
iality and social indifference ; if he suffer not the
guiding star of his great purpose to live only for
the glory of God in the salvation of men ever to
vanish from his sight in the mists of prejudice, pas-
sion and folly which are rising all around him ; if,
despite all the fires of vanity, pride, and ambition
through which he must pass, he keep fresh and
blooming in his breast the sweet flower of modest
humility ; if his heart go out as in the fore-time, to
all his brethren in the work, and he stand ready to
aid them with the glad service of former days when
he stood by their side in an equal field ; if, unspoiled
by flattery and unsoiled by selfishness, he stand
ready as before for all the work of a Methodist
preacher, neither scheming to secure, nor in heart
desiring, better fare or more favor for himself than
for his brethren : then must it be frankly and truly
said, that this man is of no common mold or feeble
might. And that such was the subject of this

STATION LIFE. 129

sketch, is attested by all who knew him in either
circuit or station work.

His station-life began early He was sent, from
the Conference of 1844, being then in the fourth
year of his itinerant life and not yet ordained elder,
to Fourth street Church, in St. Louis, with Wesley
Browning as senior preacher, and W. W Redman
as presiding elder. It is to be observed, in this
instance, that the young man follows his presiding
elder from the Weston to the St. Louis District; a
circumstance which places in a clear and strong
light the fact that he was highly appreciated by Red-
man, who had had him under his own eye for the
previous three years. The minutes show a loss of
five from the membership of First Church during
this year ; but this loss is probably not real, owing
to the occurrence, about this time, of a large deple-
tion from First Church to a branch organization.

After a year's interval, on the Weston Circuit, we
again find him, after the Conference of 1846, at
Hannibal Station, where he remains for two years,
the then limit of the pastoral term, with Jacob Lan-
nius as his presiding; elder Here he a°;am over-
comes the loss occasioned by the separation of the
churches, and reports a net gain of two as the nu-
merical result of his term of service.

Again, after two years on the Monticello Circuit,
he is sent, from the Conference of 1850, to Palmyra
Station, in the Hannibal District, with Horace Brown
as his presiding elder. Here he remains but one

130 STATION LIFE.

year, reporting, however, a net gain of fifty-eight
additions to the membership of the Church in this
brief term.

Next, after five years interval spent in the varied
employments of circuit preacher, college agent, and
presiding elder, he is sent, from the Conference of
1856, to Centenary Church, in St. Louis, with R. A.
Young as his presiding elder. He remains at Cen-
tenary but one year, but retires reporting a net gain
of one hundred and six to the membership of the
Church .

Thence, from the Conferences of 1857-8 he is sent
to First Church, in St. Louis, with Jno. R. Bennett
as his presiding elder, and, during the last year,
with Wm. F Compton as his junior. He remains
two years in charge of this important work, report-
ing, at the close of his term of service, a net gain
of ninety-eight members, despite the fact that this
charge was suffering severe losses occasioned by the
workings of the plan of separation.

From the Conferences of 1859 and 1860, he is
returned to the Centenary Church, with Jno. R.
Bennett as his presiding elder, and with J Whitta-
ker as a supernumerary preacher during the first
year. In the second year, Sixteenth street is joined
with Centenary and he is promised a supply, with
Jesse H. dimming as supernumerary and Joseph
Boyle as presiding elder, At the close of the first
year he reports a net gain of seventeen. Before the
expiratior of his second year at Centenary, he re-

STATION LIFE. 131

signs his charge into the hands of his presiding elder,
for a reason which will hereafter be mentioned, and
thus finally closes his career as a stationed preacher,
after nine years of service in the most important and
responsible fields of that work. It is enough to say
in his praise — and it is saying a great deal — that he
was uniformly and solidly successful in that work.

flfoaptcv 3fcnttL

COLLEGE AGENCY.

SOME of the hardest and most faithful, the most
perplexing and the least appreciated work ever
done by Methodist preachers in Missouri has been
done in efforts to advance the educational interests of
the people, to found and sustain schools and train the
public mind so as to promote, and so far as possible,
secure all the interests of our common humanity
It has always been a maxim with the denomination
that the moral man needed culture full as much as
did the merely intellectual man ; that true education
equally develops the physical, intellectual and moral
natures ; and that all educational sj\stems which
ignored this were defective in.exact proportion to the
neglect. Among the early works of the distinguished
founder and leader of that form or embodiment of
Christianity called Methodism, was to found schools
and make diligent and strenuous efforts to sustain
them to the extent demanded by the wants of the
people.

COLLEGE AGENCY. 133

Very soon after the organization of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in America, provisions were made
for the literary culture of the people. Twice were
college buildings erected in the days of Coke and
Asbury and each time were they the victims of de-
vouring flames. After that there was an effort to
establish schools, and soon thejr had one in Georgia,
another in Kentucky, and still others in other parts.
Besides these and a general co-operation in the edu-
cational interests of the country, the Methodists did
little until in the early part of the present century.

In the work of Sunday Schools, however, they
were quite active, first among the colored people in
the South then among the white children as the way
was opened and opportunity offered. This work they
began as early as 1783, and in a few years afterwards
there were quite a number of such schools for young
people of both colors. One of these schools — that
which was in the house of Thomas Crenshaw, in
Hanover county, Virginia,— was quite noted for its
results. Precisely when it was organized the present
writer never ascertained, but this much he did learn :
Rev John Charleston, a local preacher in the M. E.
Church in or about the year 1835, testified that he,
Charleston, was a member of that school in 1786,
and was there converted during that year. How
long the school had been in operation before can
not now, perhaps, be determined, but this was five
years in advance of the time claimed by any other
party as the origin of Sunday-schools in this country-

134 COLLEGE AGENCY.

While the Methodist Churches have never opposed
the efforts of the States or of other denominations
of Christian people in the work of general education,
they have sought to bear their part and perform their
full share. With every other denomination in the
land, they have recognized it as their duty and
claimed it as their privilege to do what they could
for the intellectual as well as the spiritual interests
of their children. Hence they have not only held
the doctrine and pursued the practice of dedicating
their children to God in the ordinance of His Church,
but also of training them accordingly, and believing
that the duty of all this rested primarily on the
parents and could never be lawfully transferred, they
regarded every teacher of youth as in loco parentis,
as the agent of the parent, employed to do a parent's
work and do it in such a manner as the parent should
direct ; consequently they always preferred a religious
before an irreligious man for a teacher, and other
things being at all equal they preferred a religious
man or woman whose views and sympathies were in
harmony with their own. This was but natural, and
what is agreed to by Christian people of any and
every denomination.

During the first thirty-four years of the operations
of Methodists in this country, or from 17()0, when
the first society was formed, to the end of that cen-
tury they could do but very little in the way of
founding and sustaining schools. They were few in
numbers — they were for the greater part poor — the

COLLEGE AGENCY. 135

war of the Revolution intervened and closed, leaving

©

the whole country in an impoverished and distressed
condition. They had lost more than fifty thousand
dollars by the burning of their college buildings in
Maryland, which was well calculated to dishearten
them, and besides so numerous and so pressing were
the calls from almost every direction for their min-
isterial services that their time and energies were
fully and constantly employed, and yet they did
something, as already noted.

It is not out of place just here to note, that in the
beginning of their educational operations Mr. Asbury
favored the founding of schools somewhat after the
pattern of the celebrated Kingswood school, founded
by Mr. Wesley in England, and for that purpose
started a subscription for a "Kingswood School in
America." The subscription was drawn up by John
Dickins. The plan was very generally approved,
but before its completion Dr Coke interfered, and
through his influence it was changed and an expensive
college was agreed upon. This was rather a sore
trial to Mr Asbury He never really approved, but
merely submitted to the change. He thought they
were undertaking too much ; that the general demand
was for elementary rather than for classical educa-
tion, and what would sustain one college would sus-
tain a dozen or more elementary schools ; and further,
that it was much easier to continue after beginning
in the right way, than it was to begin wrong and
change afterwards. But Dr. Coke's "enlarged

13G COLLEGE AGENCY.

views" prevailed, and similar "enlarged views"
have, to a large extent, prevailed since, and that,
too, to the detriment of the real interests of the
Church. By attempting too much, but little has
been accomplished, compared with what might have
been done on a different plan.

Since soon after the introduction of Methodism
into what was afterwards and is now the State of
Missouri, Methodist schools have existed, not always
by the direction of Church conferences or Church
officials, so much as by individual energy and enter-
prise. In genuine Methodism there is a spirit by
which when a man is deeply imbued, he will be
prompted to works of beneficence, and among the
very first will be that of improving the mental and
moral condition of those around him by imparting
knowledge of the proper kind. Hence Methodist
schools, or schools taught bv Methodists for the in-
struction of the children of Methodist parents, have
a history coeval with the existence of the denomina-
tion itself. Some, indeed many, of these individual
enterprises have a history worthy of record and re-
membrance. Their influence for good was wide,
deep and lasting as mind itself. As an instance the
one founded many years ago at Arcadia and so long
and so well sustained by its founder. But ever since
its organization the Missouri Annual Conference has
felt its responsibilities in regard to this matter and
been ever ready to adopt and carry out such measures
as promised an accomplishment of the desired end.

COLLEGE AGENCY. 137

Many have been the educational enterprises upon
which that conference, together with the other con-
ferences, after separation from the parent stock, has
engaged, and notwithstanding the many partial or
total failures characterizing honest efforts, great and
lasting good has been accomplished. A good the
extent of which eternity alone can reveal. The
decade from 1850 to 1860 was particularly char-
acterized by efforts in this direction. Leading min-
isters gave more than ordinary attention to the
subject and made extraordinary efforts. It may have
been that their zeal was somewhat in advance of their
discretion, but however that may have been, there is
no disputing the fact that very many of the enter-
prises set on foot during these years did not succeed.

But there are good people among us who think,
and do not scruple to say that, in their opinion, rais-
ing money for the endowment of schools and colleges
is not the proper work of a Methodist preacher. He
is called of God, they say, to preach the Gospel and
not to beg money ; and to set him at this task is, in
effect, to divert him from the sacred work to which
he has solemnly devoted his life.

While it is obvious to others that these people take
quite too narrow a view of the subject, and that
laboring for the cause of Christian education may be
one of the most effectual methods of preaching the
Gospel ; still these last are of the opinion that the
struo-o-le of the churches to stem the current of secu-
lar education is altogether hopeless, and that they

138 COLLEGE AGENCY.

would do well to surrender in advance of that day of
inevitable defeat which seems so rapidly approach-
ing. "Our people," they urge, "can not much
longer bear the double burden of an onerous taxation
to support the free schools and those liberal voluntary
contributions which are needed to sustain and ad-
vance the literary institutions of the Church. Why
not, then, relieve them in time? Already they have
grown restive, and display the temper which but too
surely indicates a coming revolt. They are gloomy,
despondent, reluctant, under our appeals, and daily
yielding more decidedly to the self-defensive impulse
which is pushing them to the exclusive patronage
and hearty approval of the schools of the State.
They are pondering with kindly seriousness the pop-
ular argument, that literary and scientific education
has really nothing to do with religion, and that
Christian people can adequately instruct their chil-
dren in the principles of their chosen creed at home
and through the agency of their Sunday-schools and
churches. Why wait until we are convicted in their
minds of sectarian bigotry or romantic folly, and thus
lose all power to influence and guide t hem ? Let then
our literary institutions be disbanded and dismantled,
and their values and revenues poured into the empty
treasury of the Church. Better thus than see them
perish slowly of pecuniary inanition, while the whole
body is infected by the contagion of their decay.
What better remains to be done? Can we hope to
conquer in a struggle with the vast resources of that

COLLEGE AGENCY. 139

civil power which can lay its hand upon our property
to compel us to support the war against ourselves ?
Then, since yield we must, let us yield gracefully
and in time."

It must be confessed that this plea is a strong
one, when regarded from a merely secular and alto-
gether human stand-point. If there were no God
in the world ; if Right should be abandoned because
it is feeble, and Wrong embraced because it is
mighty ; if principle were nothing, and expediency
everything ; if popular impulses were immutable,
and Divine laws fickle and changeful : if human
strength had always conquered human weakness,
and the history of the world had recorded no victo-
ries of the feeble against the mighty ; then, indeed,
would the weakness which resisted be folly, and the
popular argument might find no sufficient answer.

But this is neither a fair reading of nature and
Providence, nor a just statement of the claims of
religious education. It is not true, that literary and
scientific training have nothing to do with religion,
unless it is also true, that religion has no proper
connection with the employments and duties of com-
mon life. But this latter proposition is refuted by
all our observation and experience, and this refuta-
tion carries with it the overthrow of the only real
argument for purely secular education. The religion
which is limited to sacred days and ecclesiastical
services is the scorn and reproach of the whole infidel
world. They will have it in the daily life, or it is

140 COLLEGE AGENCY

nought or worse than nought. Inspiring nil the
industries and purifying nil the relations of man it
is, even in their eyes, a grand and holy thing. They
pay it reverence, as to a celestial power which they
can not understand, but which they are forced to ad-
mire and respect. Then with singular inconsistency
they demand, that this beautiful and conservative
power shall be banished from the whole school-life of
our children and youth. They will have no relig-
ious teachers and no teaching of religion in the public
schools ; and into these schools they will drive, by
indirect compulsory legislation, all the children of
the land. Such is the full and fair issue, between
the advocates of purely secular and religious educa-
tion : the former will not only have no religion in
their institutions of learning, but will compel their
opponents to patronize those institutions : the latter
would have religion in the school and college as
everywhere else, and desire only the privilege of in-
stituting and sustaining their own literary founda-
tions. This seems a hard case, and shows clearly
that the temper and attitude of the secular party
are essentially those of persecution ; and this they
would not hesitate to charge, to the disgrace of the
friends of .religion, were the case reversed.

To render this plain, let it be supposed that the
advocates of religious education, thinkinir and feel-
ing on this subject precisely as they do, should com-
bine, find themselves in the majority and obtain
possession, by their representatives, of the whole

COLLEGE AGENCY. 141

machinery of government ; that they should proceed,
by organic and statutory legislation, not to abolish
the present free-school system, but to engraft upon it
such provisions as would render it effectually a
scheme for the promotion of religious education ;
and that all who were opposed to this scheme, in
principle and belief, should be so heavily taxed for
its support as to render the institution of other
schools, in which they might, at their own expense,
educate their children according to their- conscien-
tious convictions, practically impossible : would not
this be considered such a union of Church aiid State
as trampled religious liberty in the dust, and would
it not be stigmatized as a most cruel and odious per-
secution? Yet this is precisely what the secular
party propose, and have already in large measure
accomplished against the friends of religion. It is
even in contemplation, and has been seriously advo-
cated in some quarters, to make secular education
directly compulsory (as it is now indirectly so) by
the enactment of penal statutes. The public-school
laws, then, clearly constitute another instance of the
persecution of the religious by the secular party for
conscience sake : the state has as valid a right to
secularize the churches as. the schools ; and it only
remains for Christianity to say now, as she has often
been called upon to say in other and ruder times,
whether she will be true to her principles or surren-
der them at the bidding of civil authority become
despotic.

142 COLL Kit E AGENCY.

The cause of Christian education is the cause of
Christianity itself. Purely secular education and
none other means, the extinction of the Christian
religion : this is its hidden purpose — its steady
though secret aim ; and it will as certainly succeed
as Christians give way at this point. This is no
truer to-day than it has always been : it is only that
it seems truer, because the danger is upon us in a
new form. In the former days of Christian perse-
cution by hostile States, no such enginery as the
public-school system existed. This was well for
Christianity ; for there has never been a time in its
history when, had its children been snatched from
its grasp by the strong hands of the State and
moulded and manipulated at its will, the faith of
their parents could have long survived. It was thus
the Pagan systems were beaten in their conflict with
Christianity ; not so much by other proscriptive
edicts as by that which placed their children in
Christian hands ; and Infidelity sees poetical justice
in the stern Materialism which threatens the bitter
reprisal of the present day Christianity has been
allowed relatively to lose in the progress of our later
civilization ; and this really and only accounts for
the comparative prevalence of skepticism and irre-
ligion to-day. It is not, as has been frequently said,
the natural and necessary result of modern thought
and culture, but the effect of the transferrence of the
care "and education of the voun<r from Christian
hands. This is sufficiently obvious from the fact,

COLLEGE AGENCY. 143

that the highest culture and capacity are still found
in the Christian ranks, and steadily remain there,
when the early education of such minds has been
favorable to Christianity- But formerly, and until
within a period comparatively recent, it held in its
hands, and wielded at its pleasure, the educational
facilities of every land where it prevailed and was
the Key to all its mental culture. We have seen
how it won its final triumph over Paganism, and the
lesson was not one to be forgotten. Thenceforward
to the Reformation its monks and nuns, its convents
and monasteries, were the schools and teachers of
the civilized world. Even after the Reformation,
education seemed not less firmly held in Christian
hands until free America startled the Avorld by its
practical experiments in secular schools, and thence
has grown the danger of the present hour

Now, Christianity does not claim to-day, the ex-
clusive privileges which it so long enjoyed by the
free suffrage of the nations. It asks only "a fair
field and no favor." It has undiminished confidence
in the potency of that Divine truth of which it is
the vehicle to men. It asks only that it shall not be
crushed under the tread of a blind and brutal force.
It is willing to build its humble institutions of
learning side-by-side, if need be, with the grandest
foundations of material science and literature, and
will cheerfully abide the issue of that fair competi-
tion ; but it asks to be allowed to build them with
hands unmanacled by the iron restrictions of oppres-

144 COLLEGE AGENCY.

sive statutes, and feet imclogged by the immovable
weights of unjust taxation, Then, God and the
future for the right and the true. That which it can
not afford to surrender — that which to give up would
be treason and suicide and render it another Judas
to the same Christ — is the care and education of its
children ; and to this inalienable right will it cling
while God shall give it a heart to feel, a brain to
think, or a hand to strike.

Besides, the intelligent Christian does not despair,
in the face of all the sinister omens of these most
trying times. He remembers that "He that is for
him is greater than all that can be against him;"
and he calmly awaits the subsidence of that popular
flood, some signs of whose ebb are even now ap-
parent to his discerning eye. The injustice and
inequality of the public school system are becoming
apparent to some who, without adequate examina-
tion and reflection, had been persuaded to regard it
with favor ; the folly, extravagance and corruption
of its management are attracting the unfavorable
regards, and eliciting the outspoken criticisms of
many more ; while the heavy burden of taxation is
being felt by all, and this feeling finds expression in
a general outcry for retrenchment and reform. There
is good ground for hope that, in a little while, some
of the wildest excesses of foreign and native radi-
calism, which have found their way into the adminis-
tration of this system, may be effectually rebuked
by the popular voice itself. Then, the backward

COLLEGE AGENCY. 145

tendency once fairly taken, this threatening flood
will find, sooner or later, the permanent boundary
of iustice and common sense.

In the meantime, the cause of Christian education
demands, of its friends, an unswerving devotion and
unusual sacrifices. The Churches, where they have
one agent now in the field, should, if possible, send
out ten ; and these should be men of the highest
gifts and largest culture — men who understand the
question themselves, and who can make the people
see it and feel it. This is no time for false economy
and strained and meager service. The Church which,
in this crisis, fails to put forth all its energies in the
race of educational enterprise will be left perma-
nently behind, while the prizes of future usefulness
and success are borne away by other hands.

The conferences of 1853, 1854 and 1855 placed
the interests of St. Charles College in the hands of
E. M. Marvin ; and they could have done no wiser
thing. Fervid, fearless, eloquent, he roused the
Churches to its failing support as few, if any, others
could have done. In the first ot these years hold-
ing, as he did at the same time, the presidency of
St. Charles District, his efforts for the college were
restricted, for the most part, to the limits of his
pastoral field. He could not travel at large and
present and urge its claims ; but all that could be
done, within the bounds of his pastoral work and in
connection with his regular quarterly meeting ser-
vices, Was well and faithfully accomplished. Indeed,

146 (H)LLbUiK A(iKN(JY.

so groat was his efficiency in a confined sphere and
with limited opportunities that, as lias been seen, the
succeeding conferences relieve,d him from pastoral
duty and gave him exclusive charge of the interests
of the college during two full years. It is not im-
possible that, had the exigences of the general work
permitted his continued devotion to this interest, its
final history might have been written in other terms
than what must now be used to give it a propre
characterization. He succeeded, however, in secur-
ing the proposed endowment fund, but the fortunes
of the war between the States, with other adverse
circumstances, have as yet prevented a realization
of the expected benefits.

<#tmtfiM ^laetttft.

THE PRESIDING ELDERSHIP

LIKE many others of the distinguishing charac-
teristics of Methodistic polity, the Presiding
Eldership seems to have been the legitimate result
of a combination of circumstances which could
neither have been foreseen nor prevented. It sprang
up in America, and is peculiar to American Method-
ism, never adopted by the Wesleyans of the old
country, nor by the non-Episcopal Methodists of
this.

Previous to the regular organization of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church in 1784, all the Societies, as
they were then termed, in this country were without
the regular Sacraments of the Church, except as they
received them at the hands of ministers of other
denominations, and although a few of these other
ministers — such as Mr. Jarratt, Mr. Otterbine, and a
few others, were of a Catholic spirit, very kind
toward the Methodists, and did what they could to
assist them — the great majority were of quite dif-
ferent feelings and pursued quite a different course.
The entire school of Calvinistic ministers were par-

148 THE PHESWiya ELDERSHIP.

ticulaily hostile to the Methodists, believing, ;is they
honestly did, that their course was unwarranted,
their policy bad and their doctrines worse;.. So that
from 17(50, the year of the organization of their first
Society to the organization of the Church, they
labored under many and very serious difficulties.

At the first regular conference of the preachers,
held in 1773, when the whole number of preachers
was ten (10), and the entire membership 1,160, there
was not an ordained minister among them, nor* were
any ordained until at the conference at the close of
1784. So that for eighteen years they labored under
all the disadvantages consequent upon this privation,
and yet increased until in 1784 they numbered
83 preachers and 14,988 members — all the while
dependent upon others for the administration of the
ordinance of baptism and the holy communion.

To account on philosophical and human principles
for such a success under such circumstances, amid
such discouragements, and in the face of such for-
midable opposition, would require ingenuity equal
to that displayed by ( Jibbon in his attempt to account
philosophically for the spread of Christ ianity, wherein,
according to Bulwer, he is " perpetually philosophiz-
ing, but never philosophical."

It must not be supposed, however, that there was
no restlessness under this state of affairs ; indeed, it
was so far otherwise as more than once to seriously
threaten the disruption and downfall of the whole
body.

THE PRESIDING ELDERSHIP. H9

It was difficult to make the people understand why
those who preached to them, under whose ministry
they had been converted, and by whose pastoral care
they were nourished, should not also administer to
them and to their children the regular ordinances of
the Church of God. They felt they had been made
"new creatures in Christ Jesus;" their lives were
conformed to the requirements of his law, so far as
in them lay ; they had faith in him ; had received him
by faith ; been justified and received the spirit of
adoption ; and why should not they who thus far had
been instrumental in their salvation, also furnish
them with the comforting ordinances provided for
the household of faith ? They could not understand
it; and very naturally were more or less restless.

Nor were a large proportion of the preachers sat-
isfied any more than the members. They felt they
had been divinely called to preach the Gospel ; and
very naturally argued that this call involved, directly
or indirectly, all the functions of the ministry The
evidences of their ministry were found all abroad in
the improved condition and better lives of the peo-
ple ; they were gathering abundant sheaves from
every part of the harvest-field ; could refer to thou-
sands of converted men and women, and say " they
are our epistles, known and read of all men;" and
why should not the older, the more experienced, the
wiser of their number be solemnly set apart to ad-
minister the ordinances? It must be, they argued,
else a large, even the larger portion of our people

160 THE PRESIDING ELDEBSHIP.

will be deprived of them entirely, or leave our Socie-
ties. It was a serious matter, and urgent as serious ;
hence, at every conference for several years preced-
ing the organization of the Church, the subject was
under discussion — some earnestly and persistently
pleading for ordination among themselves, and others
as earnestly pleading for further delay

At sometimes, the feeling was intense, and the
danger of disintegration imminent. It was almost
impossible to restrain the impetuosity of a portion
of the preachers, while reconciled to the delay they
never were.

The influence of Mr Asbury was great, his course
conciliatory, and by strenuous and persistent efforts
he succeeded in postponing official action until relief
came in 1784.

But had it not then come, the probabilities are,
that further restraint would have been out of the
question, and disruption, disorganization, disintegra-
tion and dissolution would have ensued, and such a
thing as embodied Methodism not known in the
country

But looking at the whole matter from the stand-
point of the present, in the event relief had not come
when and as it did, who can show wherein these
preachers and people would have erred, if in obedi-
ence to the voice of all, a suitable portion had been
ordained to the full powers of the ministry, and pro-
ceeded to administer the ordinances of the Church
of God ? This fifteen thousand people had been con-

THE PBESIDING ELDERSHIP. 151

verted to God, and being converted thev became
members of the Church of God, and as such, were
entitled to all the rights and privileges of that Church,
and as these rights and privileges were not afforded
them by others, why should they not provide for
themselves? To say the very least, it would be
difficult to frame any sound Scriptural argument
against it.

However, it is perhaps fortunate that no such ne-
cessity is upon us in this day They waited, relief
came, and came perhaps in a manner least expected
by them. Mr Asbury was greatly surprised on
learning what measures had been adopted and what
course Dr. Coke was expected to pursue, and it is
not improbable but that others were equally so.

Mr. John Wesley claiming under God to have been
the founder of Methodism as a polity, and the or-
ganizer of Methodists as a people, assisted by other
Presbyters of the Church of England, set apart by
prayer and the imposition of hands, Thomas Coke,
Doctor of Civil Law, for the general superintendency
of the Methodist societies of America, and by this
"laying on of the hands of the Presbytery," he was
also authorized and directed to set apart by formal
ordination, Francis Asbury, to a joint general super-
intendency with himself, and still further to " ordain
elders in every place," as the wants of the people
and the qualifications of the subjects would justify

It is not the purpose here and now to discuss the
validity of Dr Coke's ordination. On the general

IM THE PRESIDING ELDERSHIP.

subject something may be said in a succeeding chap-
ter. For the present the matter is passed with the
single remark that after long, earnest and faithful
endeavors to understand the subject, so far as his
ability would allow, in all its length and breadth, its
heighth and depth, the present writer believes the
ordination of Dr Coke, Mr. Asbury and Methodist
preachers generally, is as Scriptural and valid as if
it had been performed by the Archbishops of Canter-
bury and York, assisted by the Pope of Rome and
certified to bv the Patriarchs of the Greek Catholic
Church.

At the called Conference of 1784, Mr Asbury,
after having been declared to be the chosen of the
preachers, was ordained general superintendent
jointly with Dr Coke, and twenty other preachers
were ordained to the eldership and four to the dea-
conate.

The reader will now understand that as hitherto
the ordinances had not been administered ; it was
thenceafter to be done by these elders and those who
might succeed t hem. But there were not as yet one-
third as many elders as there were circuits, and yet
every circuit and every society had need for such
services as only an elder could perform, hence a
resort to the expedient of appointing a preacher to
each circuit, and then placing an elder in general
oversight of three or four circuits, so that the ordi-
nances might be accessible to all the members, and
the elders otherwise assist the preachers. This was

THE PRESIDING ELDERSHIP. 153

done at the Conference of 1785. The more experi-
enced and better qualified of the elders were assigned
to this work, some having more and some a less
number of circuits under their supervision.

This was continued from year to year for twelve
years, when the aggregate number of elders had in-
creased from twenty to one hundred and fifty-seven,
and at the Conference of 1797 the designation,
" Presiding Elder," was given to those who had the
general oversight of a number of circuits — the name
indicating the nature of the office, if office it was,
and the character of the work to be performed.'

It can not, however, be denied, and need not be dis-
guised, that almost from the very first there have
been those both in the ministry and membership of
the Church, that submitted to, rather than accepted
the presiding eldership as part and parcel of Metho-
distic economy- Some have objected to it altogether,
others have objected to manner of appointment, pre-
ferring the presiding elders should be elected by the
Conferences rather than appointed directly by the
Bishop presiding, or at least that the Conferences
should nominate a number greater — say double the
number needed — and from these nominees the Bishop
should select as many as required, at any given time.
Still others have objected to the extent of power with
which these elders have been invested.

This diversity of opinion, and, to some extent, of
feeling as well, manifested itself at an early period,
not only in private circles but in Conference action.

154 THE THE SWING ELDEBSHIP.

At the General Conference of 1NO0 the proposition
to nominate and eleet presiding elders by a vote of
the Conferences was before the body, ably and elab-
orately discussed, and on being put to- vote was
found to have many supporters, though not a ma-
jority of the Conference. Then again in the General
Conference of 1808 the same question was under con-
sideration. Again it was elaborately discussed, and
on a final vote was lost by a vote of fifty-two ayes
to seventy-three nays. Then in the General Con-
ference of 1812 it was again discussed, and on a final
vote lost by a vote of forty-two for and forty-five
against.

In the General Conference of 1816 the same ques-
tion was up, and first went to a committee of the
whole, where, with much earnestness and no little
warmth, it was discussed at great length, but lost in
the committee by a vote of forty-two for and sixty
against. So of course the committee of the whole
made their report to the Conference adversely to the
measure, and the Conference adopted the report by
a vote of sixty-three to thirty-eight. From these
facts the reader will not be slow to understand that
the subject received much attention, and excited no
little interest.

At the General Conference of 1820 it was asjain
under consideration — discussed elaborately by the
ablest men of that body — referred at last to a com-
mittee consisting of Ezekiel Cooper, Stephen G.
Roszel, N. Bangs, Joshua Wells, John Emorv and

THE PBESIDING ELDEBSHIP. 155

William Capers. This committee was appointed un-
der a resolution introduced by William Capers, to
the effect that three of the members who desired an
election of the presiding elders, and an equal number
of those opposed to any change in the then existing
plan (appointment by the Bishops) should confer
with the Bishops, and the Bishop elect, and report
to the Conference what alteration should be made to
conciliate the wishes of the brethren on the subject.
This resolution was introduced May 18th, and Joshua
Soule had been elected Bishop on the 13th, receiving
forty-seven votes out of eighty-eight. Thirty-eight
were cast for Nathan Bangs and three scattering.
This explains the allusion to the Bishop elect.

The resolution was amended by striking out "the
Bishop elect," and the next day (May 19th) the com-
mittee made their report, signed by all the members,
recommending that in the appointment of presiding
elders the Bishop should nominate three times as
many as desired, and from these nominations the
Conference should elect by ballot and without debate
the number required ; and also recommending that
the presiding elders " be, and hereby are, made the
advisory counsel of the Bishop in stationing the
preachers." This report was adopted by a vote of
sixty-one to twenty -five.

In passing along it may be remarked that the
Bishop elect, Joshua Soule, gave notice to the Con-
ference that if ordained to the Episcopacy he would
not hold himself bound to be governed by the reso-

156 THE Pit E SIDING ELDERSHIP.

lution in regard to the appointment of presiding
elders; and in consequence of this his ordination
was "deferred to some future period," and subse-
quently he formally resigned the office to which he
had been elected. This was done May 25th. Then
on the next day (May 26th) it was proposed to sus-
pend the resolution until the next General Confer-
ence, and that the Bishops in the meantime should
act under the old rule. After much and earnest
debate this was finally carried by a vote of forty-five
to thirty-five.

From this time — the close of the General Confer-
ence of 1820 — until after the Conference of 1828,
the excitement in the Church in regard to the pre-
siding eldership was deep and widely spread. In
1820 a periodical called the Wesleyan Repository
was established at Trenton, New Jersey, that did
much to increase the excitement. Its ostensible
object at first was to advocate the introduction of
lay representation in the Annual and General Con-
ferences, but very soon it took a much wider range,
including specially the episcopacy and presiding
eldership. The editor of the paper was not known
to the public, the correspondents avoided individual
reponsibility by writing over fictitious signatures,
and many severe and bitter things were written
against bishops, presiding elders, the power of the
preachers, and the government of the Church gen-
erally. As a matter of course all this was much
more likely to engender and irritate bad feelings

THE PBESIDINQ ELDERSHIP. 157

than to enlighten and convince ; and, as is too fre-
quently the case in such controversies, this soon
degenerated into personalities, in which innocent
parties were indelicately dragged before the public
in a way to offend and wound refined feelings and
injure and degrade reputation. There was at the
time a monthly periodical published by the Church,
but for some reason or other it did not participate
in the controversy, and those seeking the changes
had the field pretty much to themselves, so far as
the public press was concerned.

About this time the friends of the proposed
changes, with a view to concentrate their strength
and unify their plans, formed a "Union Society" in
the city of Baltimore, elected their officers with a
committee of correspondence, and invited all who
agreed with them to form auxiliary societies through-
out the country that there might be a general co-
operative movement. Thus matters were carried
on until near the time for the meeting of the Gen-
eral Conference of 1824, when, after many meetings
and much discussion, it was resolved to memorialize
that body on the subject, which was done in a respect-
ful manner and with a Christian-like spirit. The
memorial was received by the Conference, referred
to a committee of prominent members, who, after
careful and patient consideration, reported adversely
to the prayer of the memorialists, but recommended
that a circular be sent in reply

After able and full discussion in the Conference,

15S THE PRE SIDING EL DEB SHIP.

the report of the committee, was adopted, and a
circular ordered to be sent, which was accordingly
done.

A copy of this circular is before the present writer.
Its tone is remarkably kind and conciliatory ; and
it sets forth in detail the reasons which influenced the
Conference to reject the prayer of the memorialists.

It is worthy of note that in the petitions before
the Conference, asking for lay representation in the
Annual and General Conferences, the petitioners
waived all questions of right in the premises, and
urged their prayer upon the ground of expediency
and practical utility. This was understood to be
in accordance with a compromise previously made
among themselves. But soon after the General
Conference of 1824, if, indeed, it were not during
the session, some of the Reformers, as they were
then called, became dissatisfied with the terms of the
compromise, and insisted upon a lay representation
as a natural and social right, and claimed that the
rejection of their petitions by the General Confer-
ence was an evidence of spiritual despotism, un-
worthy the character of Christian ministers.

Very soon they established a periodical called
the Mutual Rights. This was published in the city
of Baltimore ; and, taking into account its history,
from first to last, perhaps no paper published any-
where, or by any people, was ever so replete with
denunciations of the government of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, or so abusive of her ministers.

THE PEE SIDING ELDEBSIIIP. 159

This was adding fuel to the flames, and things
went on from bad to worse, until, at the session of
the Baltimore Conference of 1827, a member was
complained of for recommending and circulating the
Mutual Rights ; and during the investigation of the
matter, he avowed principles and made declarations
the Conference, could not approve, and, as a punish-
ment, they requested the Bishop to leave him with-
out an appointment for one year. From this decision
he appealed to the General Conference ; but, instead
of quietly awaiting the decision of that body, he
appealed from the constituted authorities of the
Church to the populace, through the columns of the
Mutual Rights; and denounced the Baltimore Con-
ference for its decision in his case, and invoked the
decision of the public in his favor. This, of course,
widened the breach among the brethren, while the
public generally, as is usually the case in regard to
such quarrels, cared but little about the matter one
way or the other.

In the latter part of this year (1827) several
members, in the city of Baltimore, were arraigned
under a charge of sowing dissensions in the Church,
and inveighing against her discipline ; and though
great efforts were made to adjust the difficulties, and
retain the offenders in the Qhurch, they were finalty
excluded. Similar proceedings were had in other
places. Those thus dealt with in Baltimore were
eleven local preachers and twenty-two laymen.
Soon after, about fifty females, friends of the ex-

ICO THE PRESIDING ELDERSHIP.

eluded, withdrew from the Church. These all
united and formed themselves into :i society under
the title of " Associated Methodist Reformers," and
in November of this year a general convention, com-
posed of ministers and lay delegates, who had been
elected by State conventions and Union societies,
assembled in that city, and, among other things,
prepared a memorial to the breneral Conference
which was held in the May following. Whether, at
this stage of their proceedings, they expected or
desired the General Conference to grant their prayer
and make the changes asked for ; or whether they
intended only to open the way more fully for a new
organization, perhaps already resolved on, is more
than can now be determined. However, the memo-
rial was prepared, presented to the General Confer-
ence, read and referred to a committee, and Dr,
John Emory, afterward Bishop Emory, drew up the
report of that committee, a long and very able docu-
ment, reviewing the whole ground in controversy ;
and, with marked ability, defending the positions
the Conference had assumed in 1824 ; and, of course,
occupied ground adverse to the prayer of the memo-
rialists, but appending resolutions providing for the
return of the excluded members to the bosom of the
Church upon their compliance with the conditions
therein specified. The report was adopted by the
Conference, and, so far as the Conference was con-
cerned, the matter was put to rest.

In November, after this session of the General

THE PBESIDINO ELDEBSHIP. 161

Conference, the "Associated Methodist Churches"
held a convention in Baltimore, at which a "provis-
ional government was formed until a Constitution
and Book of Discipline could be prepared at a future
convention." This future convention assembled in
the same city, on the second day of November, 1830,
continued its sessions until the twenty-third of the
same month, and adopted a Constitution, Discipline,
etc., under the title of The Methodist Protestant
Church.

Since then, though there may not have been entire
unanimity of feeling on the subject, it has produced
little or no disquietude in the Church. Such per-
sons as embraced Methodist doctrines, and disap-
proved its form of government have readily found
homes in the non-episcopal branches of Methodism,
and have thus quietly pursued the even tenor ot
their way

It is not a part of the present plan to attempt any-
thing like an elaborate defense of the right or pro-
priety of the adoption and maintenance of the pre-
siding eldership in the Church. The abstract right
can scarcely be questioned, while the propriety and
expediency must be determined by circumstances
and results. It is no separate order in the ministry,
nor is it invested with any functions that do not
belong the ministry as a body — but is a mere divis-
ion of ministerial labor which the experiment of
nearly a hundred years has proven to be salutary
and efficient. The relation and duties are well de-

102 THE PRESIDING ELDEIiSIIIP.

fined — so t hat both elders ;md preachers — and
preachers and people may easily learn both their
positive and relative duties, and neither need inter-
fere with the other If any oppression arise, it is
the fault of both parties — the one for doing it, the
other for permitting it to be done — and the latter
would be censurable as the former. The same man
may be an assistant preacher on a circuit to-day and
a presiding elder to-morrow — or a presiding elder
to-day and an assistant on a circuit to-morrow, and
in neither case be higher or lower in the ministry,
nor better or worse as a man, nor yet any more or
any less esteemed by his brethren. But such is the
economy of the Church and such the conventional
functions of the presiding eldership that if the occu-
pant of the position be a good and a just, man, his
piety and power may kindle a name of intelligent
devotion that warms and illuminates every depart-
ment of church enterprise ; if he be a k' tame, trite
medium," the district and quarterly conferences will
reflect his dull opacity and loiter lazily through
their inefficient rounds of soulless and perfunctory
service; while, should it chance that a character of
selfishness and malignity finds itself in this place of
power and opportunity, it is impossible to measure
the evil consequences which may flow from such
" bad eminence."

In the lapse of time, another power is added or
joined — the power of particular and general knowl-
edge of the men and work of his District. This

THE PEE SIDING ELDEBSHIP. 163

power he shares with none. It is the exclusive and
indefeasible perquisite of his office ; and in this case,
as in some others, the perquisite is greater than the
stipend. Neither conference nor bishop can wrest it
from him ; for all that he imparts to them has the
effect of adding to his own value and importance.
Thus he has the ear, and can help to guide the hand,
of the Stationing Power The Methodist preacher
generally communicates with the bishop only through
his Presiding Elder. As a rule, he would regard it
as improper — or at least contrary to established
usage, to interfere directly with his own appoint-
ment. He desires to have neither choice nor influ-
ence in the matter, and commits his case to the
Father of All and prays that his assignment to any
particular field of labor may be a Divine arrange-
ment, so that armed with this simple trust he may
feel panoplied against every evil. This is well and
familiarly known, as putting one's self in the hands
of one's Presiding Elder, and may be said to char-
acterize the feeling and action of every loyal Meth-
odist preacher in the land. Thus, in every sense,
the Presiding Elder, in the annual council, is "the
power behind the throne/' The bishop neither
knows nor can know many of the men or much of
the work, except through the representations of
these constitutional advisers. The plan of appoint-
ments, which thence results from their united labors,
will be wise and judicious in proportion as the bish-
op's advisers are honest and able men ; while, should

164 THE rilESIDING ELDERSHIP.

they be wanting in either quality, the fatal effects
will be seen and felt throughout the conference yeju

It will thus be seen, that the Presiding Eldership
is the key of the modern Methodist position ; that it
maybe the source of weakness, and the condition of
strength ; and that its future prosperity, not less than
its present efficiency, depends upon the character
and attributes of the men who now fill, and shall
hereafter occupy, this high and responsible place.
For it can scarcely be thought that the present
sentiment of some of the stations, with regard to
this office, will ever come to be so widely shared by
the connection as to result in its abolition or radical
modification, unless at the same time one gives up the
leadi ng characteri sties of Methodist itinerancy Noth-
ing, indeed, could so effectually scuttle that noble
vessel as any decided change just here ; such a change
would let in the whole surrounding sea of worldli-
ness ; and the men who seek it arc like thoughtless
children playing with an augur in the vessel's hold.

Now, into a position of such vast authority and
trust, it is evident that the Church should put only
her very best men. " Gifts" are not nearly so im-
portant, in this place, as "graces." Great tender-
ness of heart and a corresponding gentleness of
manners, with a fervent and all-consecrating piety
and sincere devotion to the principles and interests
of Methodism, are the prime requisites for the posi-
tion of Presiding Elder. Brilliant, popular talents
are comparatively unimportant. It is well, uu-

THE PBESIDING ELDEBSHIP. 165

doubtedly, that this official representative of Metho-
dism should be, in all respects, the foremost man of
his district ; that he should be the most powerful
and effective preacher, the most popular and in-
structive lecturer and the readiest and most brilliant
conversationist within the circle of his work ; and
still more, that he should possess the highest endow-
ment of those rarer powers of insight, invention,
combination, forecast and order which would qualify
him to originate, and carry forward to success, the
most extended schemes for the benefit of the Church ;
and it is unquestionably true that, if she might always
command this order of ability, combined with moral
excellence, in the incumbents of her district presi-
dencies, imagination could hardly assign a limit to
the number, magnitude and rapidity of her con-
quests. But it is a matter of fact that she can not
always get them. Such combination of moral and
intellectual excellence is rare in any communion.
She must, then, use for this work, such agents as she
has at hand ; and among these it is all-important
that she select only good men, at whatever sacrifice
of fair appearance in the eyes of the world, or of
the more refined and critical localities of her own
field. People and preachers like well enough to have
a great Presiding Elder, but they must have a good
one. Of all things, the man wanted in this work is
a man that can be trusted.

But our later Methodism finds, in the stations, an
eager and clamorous competitor with the districts for

166 THE I'h'ESTDfYG ELDERSHIP.

the services of the best men to be found in her ranks ;
with the advantage, too, in favor of the stations, that
they must and will be heard in their own behalf;
whereas the districts are almost necessarily silent.
It is true that what the stations more particularly
desire in their preacher is, that brilliant order of
pulpit abilities which will enable them to rival suc-
cessfully those churches of other denominations by
which they are surrounded ; but it sometimes hap-
pens that this class of talents is found combined with
that moral worth and those larger energies which
qualify their possessor most efficiently to do the work
of a district ; and when this is the case , the station
is very likely to carry off its man in triumph, while
the district must be content with a comparatively in-
ferior officer. This is a sad mistake, because it sac-
rifices both the man and the work to the demands of
a few, to the neglect of many. Such men should
never be cramped and cribbed in a station. They
are made for a larger sphere and a higher life. They
are not at home in a station, and there results a great
loss of power. It is true that they can do the work
of a station, and do it faithfully and well ; but other
and inferior men can equal or excel them there, while
in a wider field they would be almost peerless. Some
extracts from "Marvin's Life of Caples" maybe
appropriate here, as indicating the author's concep-
tion of the nature and scope of the Presiding Elder's
work :
44 From the first there have not been wanting men who have

THE PRESIDING ELDERSHIP. 167

doubted the utility of this part of our Church economy. It has
been characterized as a fifth wheel. Especially is this feeling
found to exist in the cities. It has been often affirmed that the
Presiding Elder does no good. His quota must be paid, adding
to the burdens of the Church, while he accomplishes nothing
to compensate the outlay. Often the station preacher fills the
pulpit better and more acceptably than he, and the quarterly
meeting is an occasion not felt in the Church. Therefore, why
take a man out of the regular pastorate where he might do
much good, and give him this office in which he does none?

" This argument takes for granted as a fact what can by no
means be admitted. That many presiding elders do, apparently,
little or no good, may be granted. The same is unfortunately
true of many pastors. Too many men on districts render only
a perfunctory service. They do not take hold of things with
the spirit that ensures results. They attend the quarterly meet-
ings, preach Saturday morning (may be) and Sunday morning
go through the business of the quarterly conference in a languid
way, hold the love-feast, receive their 'quota,' and take their
departure, not greatly regretted. This is the history of too
much district work. Yet it may be maintained that even this
species of service has considerable value. It holds the admin-
istration of the pastoral charges to a responsibility that has a
wholesome effect. It brings the affairs of the Church under
official review, and iu that way secures an attention to many
important interests that would be otherwise left at loose ends.
A good many things are done because the quarterly meeting is
coming on. But for this spur they would not be done at all.
The condition of the Church, of the Sunday-schools, of the
finances, is brought under review. There is something in human
nature that recognizes the prestige of office, and respects it.
* Governments ' are of Divine ordination, and one of the chief
securities of government is found in that sentiment which is
ineradically, and which is an essential constituent of our very
being — the sentiment of reverence for dignities. The official
character of the Presiding Elder, though as a man he may have
no great weight, has a good effect in causing the business of the
Church to be attended to and keeping some vitality in the organ-
ization.

*********

"The Methodist itinerancy is a singularly compact, well-con-

168 THE PliE,SI/UX<! ELDETtSllll'

trived, rigorous, reproductive organization. Its utmost vitality
has been realized in America; the Presiding Eldership is in-
corporated into it. Those Methodist bodies that have discarded
it in this country have never done well. The fault is, the itin-
erant organization is not complete without it. The fifth wheel
is indispensable. Its regulating and balancing function is vital.
' It prevents friction and derangement, and keeps things in good
tone.

"If the incumbent be a man of good administrative ability
he will start new enterprises every here and there and impart
new vitality to old ones, and the Church will go forward with
more and new vigor, and better growth, through the agency of
every new activity set on foot. It is a thing greatly to be de-
sired that this officer should be a man who can comprehend the
possibilities of the situation in each charge of his District.
There are agencies at hand everywhere which escape the notice
ot most men, and which, if brought into requisition, would en-
sure prosperity. We have all known Presiding Elders, a few of
them, who excelled in this. Sometimes the men most success-
ful in this office are no great preachers ; but they have an instinct
of organization and administration that makes them a power.
They seem to have been made to have work done. They work
with a will themselves, and put springs into everything they
touch. This class of men — men of fine administrative faculty —
realize fully the vahu; of this office.

"• If, in addition to this, again, they have unusual power in
the pulpit, there is an effectual door open for them. In this
case the quarterly meetings are fruitful occasions, especially in
smaller towns and country places. Who is therein the West
that has not many recollections of such occasions? The Church
is edified. Keligion takes deeper root. The way is prepared
for revivals. Very often the work begins under the labors of
the IClder The doctrines of the Church, are vindicated and
established by his preaching. Everything is toned up, and the
operations of the (Miurch acquire new force.

*■ Many a preacher, perplexed and discouraged in his work,
particularly of the younger class of preachers, has been en-
heartened and set forward with a new hope and a fresh zeal by
the quarterly visits of his superior officer. Many a steward and
class-leader has been made to realize the obligations of Ids
office under the admonitions given in quarterly conference.

THE PRESIDING ELDERSHIP. 169

" Movements may often be set on foot having wider scope
than the limits of a single charge. . Large results may often be
secured by concentrating the agencies to be found scattered
over a considerable area. The connectional character of the
Methodist o ganization, especially as it appears in the form of
a District, may often be made available for most important
ends. It often embraces a scope of country just large enough
to be kept well in hand and concentrated on one object. Let it
be, for instance, the building up of a school of high grade."

The above extracts sufficiently indicate how thor-
oughly Marvin comprehended the duties, responsi-
bilities and opportunities of the office of Presiding
Elder. And yet, in all his active and useful minis-
terial life, he was never appointed to the presidency
of but one district, and held that place for only two
years. The exigent claims of the college agency
demanded his services and took him from the district
work, where it found him, to what was really a more
important field of labor This can not be regretted,
for nowhere else could the Church be more efficiently
served, even at that day, than in labors for the cause
of religious education. But his friends, and all the
friends of Missouri Methodism have the right to re-
gret the fact that, at the close of his term of highly
efficient service as college agent, he was yielded to
the grasp of the city stations. They got him and
kept him, with unyielding tenacity, during all the
remainder of his pastoral life. From the Conference
of 1852, he was sent to the St. Charles District as
Presiding Elder, and the efficiency of his service may
be inferred from the simple fact that, at the close of
the ensuing conference year, there was reported,

170 THE l'llUSIDIXG ELDERSIIIl'.

from that District, a net gain of seven hundred und
fifteen to the membership of the Church. From
the Conference of 1 <ST>3 he was returned to the same
charge, with the added burden of the agency for St.
Charles College. How well he bore the double bur-
den, the minutes of the Conference and the warm
and grateful appreciation of his brethren sufficiently
attest.

For the benefit of those whose opportunities may
not have allowed them to become acquainted with
this subject in all its history, phases, and bearings,
it may be proper in concluding this chapter to allude
to some of the more prominent pleas which were en-
ered in defense of the presiding eldership. The first,
as already intimated, was that of necessity To pro-
vide for a regular administration of the ordinances
was a necessity to the peace, the prosperity, and the
very existence of the Church. How this was done
in 17.S.r> has been shown. Then when the term
"presiding elders" came to be used, Dr. Coke and
Mr. Asbury, in their notes On the Discipline, justified
the measure by a course of argument which very
clearly indicates the views they entertained. After
citing sundry Scriptures in favor of having "pre-
siding, superintending, or ruling elders," they pro-
ceed :

'" On the principles or data ;il>ove mentioned, all the episcopal
churches in the world have, in some measure, formed their
church government.

"And we believe we can venture to assert, that there never
has been an episcopal church of any great extent which has not

THE PBESIDWG ELDEBSR1P. 171

had ruling or presiding elders, either expressly by name, as In
the apostolic churches, or otherwise in effect. On this account
it is, that all the modern episcopal churches have had their
presiding or ruling elders under the names of grand vicars, arch-
deacons, rural deans, etc.

" The Moravians have presiding elders who are invested with
very considerable authority, though we believe they are simply
termed elders. And we beg leave to repeat, that we are con-
fident we could, if need were, show that all the episcopal
churches, ancient and modern, of any great extent, have had
an order or set of ministers corresponding, more or less,* to our
presiding or ruling elders, all of whom were, more or less, in-
vested with the superintendence of other ministers."

Then, after a reference to the views and desires

of Mr. Wesley in regard to a plan of government

for the M. E. Church in America, they continue :

" In 1792 the General Conference, equally conscious of the
necessity of having such an office among us, not only coufirmed
everything that Bishop Asbury and the district conferences
had done, but also drew up or agreed to the present section for
the explanation of the nature and duties of the office. The
Conference clearly saw that the bishops wanted assistants ; that
it was impossible for one or two bishops so to superintend the
vast work on this continent as to keep evervthing in order in
the intervals of the conference, without other official men to
act under them and assist them ; and as these would be only
the agents of the bishops in every respect, the authority of ap-
pointing them, and of changing them, ought, from the nature
of things, to be in the episcopacy.

" If the presiding or ruling elders were not men in whom the
bishop could fully confide, or on the loss of confidence, could
exchange for others, the utmost confusion would ensue.

"This also renders the authority invested in the bishops, of
fixing' the extent of each district, highly expedient. They must
be supposed to be the best judges of the abilities of the presiding
elders whom they themselves choose; and it is a grand part of
their duty to make the districts and the talents of the presiding
elders who act for them, suit and agree with each other, as far
as possible; for it can not be expected that a sufficient number
of them can any time be found, of equal talents, and, therefore,

172 THE PRESIDING ELDERSHIP.

the extent of their field of action must be proportioned to their
gifts.

44 From all that, has been advanced, and from those other
ideas which will present themselves to the reader's mind on this
subject, it will appear that the presiding elders must, of course,
be appointed, directed, and changed by the episcopacy. And
yet their power is so considerable that it would by no means be
sufficient for them to be responsible to the bishops only for their
conduct in their office. They are as responsible in this respect,
and in every other, to the yearly conference to which they belong,
as any other preacher ; and may be censured, suspended, or ex-
pelled from the connection, if the conference see it proper; nor
have the bishops any authority to overrule, suspend, or meliorate
in any degree the censures, suspensions, or expulsions of the
Conference.

" Many and great are the advantages arising from this insti-
tution. 1 v It is a great help and blessing to the quarterly meet-
ings respectively, through the connections, to have a man at
their head who is experienced not only in the ways of God, but
in men and manners, and in all things appertaining to the order
of our Church. Appeals may be brought before the quarterly
meetings from the judgment of the preacher who has the over-
sight of the circuit, who certainly would not be, in such cases,
so proper to preside as the ruling elder. Nor would any local
preacher, leader, or steward be a suitable president of the
meeting, as his parent, his child, his brother, sister, or friend
might be more or less interested in the appeals which came be-
fore him; besides, his local situation would lead him almost in-
variably to pre-judge the case, and, perhaps, to enter warmly
into the interests of one or other of the parties, previously to
the appeal. It is, therefore, indisputably evident that the
ruling elder is most likely to be impartial, and, consequently,
the most proper per»on to preside.

" 2. Another advantage of this office arises from the necessity
of changing preachers from circuit to circuit in the intervals of
the yearly conferences. Many of the preachers are young in
years and ^ifts; and this must always be the case, more or less,
or a fresh supply of traveling preachers in proportion to the
necessities of the work could not be procured. These young
men, in general, are exceedingly zealous. Their grand forte is
to awaken souls; and in this view they are highly necessary for

THE PRESIDING ELDERSHIP. 173

the spreading of the gospel. But for some time their gifts can
not be expected to be various ; and, therefore, half a year at a
time, or sometimes even a quarter, may be sufficient for them
to labor in one circuit. To change them, therefore, from circuit
to circuit, in the intervals of the j7early conferences, is highly
necessary in many instances. Again, the preachers themselves,
for family reasons, or on other accounts, may desire, and have
reason to expect, a change. But who can make it in the absence
of the bishops, unless there be a presiding elder appointed for
the district? A recent instance proves the justice of this re-
mark : A large district was lately without a presiding elder for
a year. Many of the preachers, sensible of the necessity of a
change in the course of the year, met together and settled every
preliminary for the purpose. Accordingly, when the time fixed
upon for the change arrived, several of them came to their new
appointments according to agreement, but, behold, the others
had changed their minds, and the former were obliged to return
to their old circuits, feeling not a little disgrace on account of
their treatment.

" And this would be continually the case, and all would be
confusion, if there were no persons invested with the powers of
ruling elders, by whatever name they might be called; as it would'
be impossible for the bishops to be present everywhere, and
enter into the details of all the circuits.

" 3. Who is able properly to supply the vacancies in the cir-
cuits on the death of preachers, or on their withdrawing from
the traveling connection? Who can have a thorough knowledge
of the state of the district, and its resources for the filling up
such vacancies, except the presiding elder who travels through
the whole district? And shall circuits be often neglected for
months together, and the flocks, during these times, be, more
or less, without shepherds, and many of them, perhaps, perish
for want of food, merely that one of the most Scriptural and
useful offices among us may be abolished? Shall we not rather
support it, notwithstanding everything which may be subtlely
urged by our enemies under the cry of tyranny, which is the
common cry of restless spirits, even against the best of govern-
ments, in order that they may throw everything into confusion,
and then ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm?

"4. When a bishop visits a district, he ought to have one to
accompany him in whom he can fully confide ; one who can

174 THE PRESIDLWU ELDER SHIP

inform him of the whole work in a complete and comprehensive
view; and, therefore, one who has traveled through the icholey
and, by being present at all the quarterly meetings, can give all
the information concerning every circuit in particular, and the
district in general, which the bishop can desire. Nor is the
advantage small that the bishops, when at the greatest distance,
may receive from the presiding elders a full account of their
respective districts, and may thereby be continually in posses-
sion of a more comprehensive knowledge of the whole work
than they could possibly procure by any other means.

'• 5. The only branch of the presiding elder's office, the im-
portance and usefulness of which is not so obvious to some per-
sons, but which is, at the same time, perhaps the most expedient
of all, is, the suspending power, for the preservation of the purity
of our ministry, and that our people may never be burdened
with preachers of insufficient gifts. Here we must not forget
that the presiding elder acts as agent to the bishops; and that
the bishops are, the greatest part of their time, at a "vast dis-
tance from him ; he must, therefore, exercise episcopal authority
(ordination excepted) or he can not act as their agent.

"All power may be abused. The only way which can be
devised to prevent the abuse of it, if we will have a good and
effective government, is to make the executive governors com-
pletely responsible, and their responsibility within the reach of
the aggrieved. And in the present instance, not only the Gen-
eral Conference may expel the presiding elder — not only the
episcopacy may suspend him from the exercise of his office —
but the yearly conference may impeach him, try him, and expel
him; and such a three-fold guard must be allowed, by every
candid mind, to be as full a check to the abuse of his power,
as, perhaps, human wisdom can devise.

" But is it not strange that any of the people, should complain
either of this or of the ejn'srojxd office? These offices in the
church are peculiarly designed to ameliorate the severity of
Christian discipline, as far as they respect the people. In them
the people have a refuge, an asylum to which they may 11 v
upon all occasions. To them they may appeal, and before them
they may lay all their complaints and grievances. The persons
who bear these offices are their fathers in the gospel, ever open
of access, ever ready to relieve them under every oppression.
And we believe we can venture to assert, that the people have

THE PEE SIDING ELDERSHIP. 175

never had even a plausible pretense to complain of the author-
ity either of the bishops or the presiding elders.

" 6. We may add, as was just hinted above, that the bishops
ought not to enter into small details. It is not their calling.
To select the proper men who are to act as their agents, to pre-
serve in order and in motion the wheels of the vast machine — to
keep a constant and watchful eye upon the whole — and to think
deeply for the general good — form their peculiar and important
avocation. All of which shows the necessity of the office now
under consideration.

" The objection brought by some that many of the most use-
ful preachers are taken out of the circuits for this purpose,
whose preaching talents are thereby lost to the connection, will
by no means bear examination. Even if this was the case, the
vast advantage arising from a complete and effective superin-
tendence of the work would, we believe, far over-balance this
consideration. But the objection is destitute of weight. Their
preaching abilities are, we believe, abundantly more useful.
Though all the preachers of matured talents and experience
can not be employed as presiding elders, yet those who are
employed as such generally answer this character. They are
qualified to build up believers on their most holy faith, and to
remove scruples, and answer cases of conscience, more than
the younger preachers in general. In many circuits some parts
of the society might suffer much in respect to the divine life,
for want of these gifts peculiarly necessary for them, were it
not for this additional help; while the junction of the talents
of the presiding elder with those of the circuit preachers, will,
in general, make the whole complete. And as the presiding
elder is, or ought to be, always present at the quarterly meet-
ings, he will have opportunities of delivering his whole mind
to a very considerable part of the people: nor is there any
reasonable ground to fear that he will ever wear out his talents,
if we consider the extent of the district, and the obligation the
episcopacy is under to remove him at furthest on the expira-
tion of four years.

" To these observations we may add, that the calling of dis-
trict conferences, on the immorality of traveling preachers, on
their deaths, the necessity of removals, etc., would be attended
with the most pernicious consequences to the circuits on this
vast continent, where the districts are so large, and the absence
of the preachers would be necessarily so long upon every such,

176 THE PRESIDING ELDEliSIlIV

occasion. And we will venture to assort, that if :tny effective
government ought to exist at all in the connection, during the
intervals of the yearly and general conferences, there is no
alternative between the authority of the hishops and their
agents, the presiding elders, on the one hand, and the holding
of district conferences on the other hand.'1

" We will conclude our notes on this section with observing,
that there is no ground to believe that the work of ( Jod has been
injured, or the numbers of the society diminished, by the insti-
tution of this order, but just the contrary. In the year 17*4,
when the presiding eldership did, in fact, though not in name,
commence, there were about fourteen thousand in the society
on this continent; and now the numbers amount to upward of
fifty -six thousand : so that the society is, at present, four times
as large as it was twelve or thirteen years ago. We do not
believe that the office now under consideration was the principal
cause of this general revival, but the Spirit and the grace of
God, and the consequent zeal of the preachers in general. Yet
we have no doubt but the full organization of our body, and
giving to the whole a complete and effective executive govern-
ment, of which the presiding eldership makes a very capital
branch, has, under God, been a. grand means of preserving the
peace and union of our connection, and the purity of our min-
istry, and, therefore, in its consequences has become a chief in-
strument, under the grace of God, of this great revival."

Although those "Notes" were appended to the
edition of the Discipline of 171H>, they were not
authoritative. The bishops themselves expressly
disclaimed having any authority to make rules or
regulations for the church. Still, the Notes are
important its expressing the views of the first bish-
ops of the Methodist Episcopal Church respecting
the Discipline at that time.

Whatever may be the views now prevailing in the
church, or whatever changes may have been made
in its economy, the intelligent reader will be pleased

THE PRESIDING ELDERSHIP. 177

to learn from the foregoing what the views of the
church were at the close of the last and the begin-
ning of the present century. It was then, as now —
the presiding eldership is useful or useless — a bless-
ing or a burden — according to the ability and fidelity
of the men to whom it is committed.

The arguments used by the bishops in the fore-
going extracts may not be such as would likely be
used now But however that may be, the views
they express, and the historical facts given in this
chapter, will afford the reader a correct knowledge
of the whole subject, as at that time understood.

(fcptw twelfth.

ARMY LIFE.

ONE authority says of Marvin that, " In Feb-
ruary, 1862, he ran the gauntlet of the Union
armies and went South as a missionary to the sol-
diers ;" and another that, " In the war between the
States he was with the South, and it was necessary
for him to leave." Both these statements refer to
the fact of his departure from Centenary Church, in
St. Louis, in the midst of the war, to which allusion
has already been made in this work and further refer-
ence promised. They are both inaccurate, inasmuch
as they fail to give the whole case, and ascribe this
apparent desertion of his post, the former to polit-
ical enthusiasm and the latter to personal cowardice
These are undeserved reflections upon the purity and
fidelity of his character. lie was not the man to
have abandoned the work to which he had been as-
signed by the authority of the Conference, through
the influence of motives so unworthy And the
truth is, he did not abandon it. He only left it for a
season, to discharge an important duty, and was pre-

ABMY LIFE. 179

^vented from returning to it by circumstances over
which he had no control.

It is well known, that the war between the States
began in April, 1861, and that the General Confer-
ence of the M. E. Church, South was to have met
in New Orleans in April, 1862. To this body Mar-
vin was one of the delegates from the St. Louis
Conference. But, long before the date fixed for its
meeting, the Federal lines embraced nearly, if not
quite, the whole State of Missouri. It was very de-
sirable that the two Missouri Conferences should
be represented in the General Conference, but evi-
dently impracticable, in the disturbed state of the
country, to send full delegations there. Under these
circumstances it was thought best, upon consultation,
that one member of each delegation should endeavor
to reach the seat of the General Conference, pro-
vided one could be found ready and willing to under-
take a service of so much difficulty and peril. It was
not the mere chance of being shot, that such an one
must risk, but the more serious danger of being
arrested and summarily tried and perhaps hanged as
a spy Two men agreed to undertake this work.
These were E. M. Marvin and E K. Miller. In the
midst of perils which beset them on every side, they
made their way through the Federal lines and into
the camp of the Confederates. There they learned,
to their surprise and mortification that, on account
of the danger then threatening New Orleans, the
appointment for the session of the General Confer-

180 ARMY LIFE.

ence in that city had been authoritively recalled and
that their perilous venture must fail of its proposed
end. What, then, should be done? Each of these
lonely and adventurous representatives of Missouri
Methodism must answer that question for himself.
There was none, save God and his own conscience of
duty, to help him to a just solution.

Miller determined to return to his home. Cer-
tainly there was much to urge this course. The claims
and duties of an unexpired term of service, the ties
of family, kindred and friends, and the native en-
dearments of home, were in themselves strong and
almost irresistable attractions, and to these must be
added the repelling force of the natural doubt
whether, during an uncertain and possibly long
period and amid the hurry and confusion of war,
there could be found for them any congenial and
useful employment within the Confederate lines.
Though they were cordially received, yet might they
not, on the whole, prove rather a hindrance than
help to the Southern cause? So, Miller turned his
steps Northward. Divesting himself of all disguise,
he appeared simply as a well-known Methodist min-
ister, who had leave of absence for a short time on
clerical business and was now returning to his home
and his work. Of course, there was much less diffi-
culty and danger in coming back than in going ; yet,
after having recrossed the Missouri river, and while
he was congratulating himself on having safely passed
so many perils, he was arrested by Federal troops,

ARMY LIFE. 181

thrown into prison, and kept there till near the close
of the war. Obviously, he had chosen naturally but
not wisely

Marvin, on the other hand, resolved to remain
where he was. It was not that he was less power-
fully drawn in the direction of home than his coad-
jutor, or that he apprehended less sensitively the
difficulties and embarrassments of remaining in the
South. Few men had a higher conscience of duty,
or a heart more susceptible to tender influences, than
he ; and few ever calculated with more thoughtful
forecast the end which lay before him. He merely
reached, starting from the same premises, a different,
and what the event proved, a wiser conclusion. He
did not think that the road lay open to his return,
and he did think that he might do some good where
he was. He therefore decided to remain.

It is not sought to be disguised, that his reason

and heart were with the Southern cause. Indeed,

to the day of his death, his opinions and feelings on

this subject were deepened but never changed ; and

to this fact, all his public and private utterances,

whenever such out-speaking was appropriate to his

theme, bore unwavering testimony. In some of the

best passages of his Life of Caples, where he speaks

con amove, and evidently quite as much for himself as

for his hero, this will abundantly appear. Take, for

instance, the following:

" So far as the subject of slavery was involved in the contest
he (Caples) was well prepared to decide the question for him-

182 ARMY LIFE.

self. In his church relations ho had been forced to investigate
that matter. He had done so thoroughly. He had read every-
thing in our current literature on the subject, and brought to
bear the powers of analysis for which he was so remarkable.
As a question involving conscience he had answered it long be-
fore. I had ample opportunity to know his mind from long
conversations on several occasions within the few years preced-
ing the war. There were two points on which he delivered
himself with great emphasis.

" The first was that the Bible did not condemn slavery, had
clearly in the Old Testament authorized it and in the New
allowed it. It was established by statute in the civil code of
Moses. It.was recognized, and the duties it involved, defined
and enjoined by the Apostle Paul. It is, therefore, not a ques-
tion overlooked by the sacred writers, but dbtinctly under their
cognizance and treated of by them. Clearly, if the ownership
of slaves were sin, they had occasion to pronounce upon it.
The Holy Spirit, speaking by them on this topic, deals with the
relation of master and slave, but never once condemns it.
What, then, must be the audacity of the man who professes to
accept the Bible as the word of God, the divine and ultimate
standard of morals, and impeaches .he Holy Ghost in his teach-
ing on this subject.

*********

" His second was, that Abolitionism was the deadliest sin of
modern society. Its direct tendency was to subvert the Chris-
tian faith. That done, the only divine safeguard of virtue per-
ishes. He heard the insane cry for 4 an anti-slavery God and an
anti-slavery Bible ' with the most profound alarm. He had
even heard members of so-called Christian Churches say, 4 If
you should convince me that the Bible justifies slavery, I would
throw it away and trample it under my feet.' Nor was this a
mad outburst of one or two fanatical spirits, but a wide-spread
sentiment of Abolitionism, in and out of the Church. This
4 higher law, ' the law of reason, or humanity, or whatever else,
that might set itself above Holy Scripture, he saw to be a deadly
infection of society, under which all simple faith in the Word
of God must perish. That done, man falls back into the utter
darkness and chaos of unchecked, erratic thought, and having no
divine center to hold him in the orbit of truth, each individual
must become a law to himself, and society be ultimately disor-

ARMY LIFE. 183

ganized. Worse yet, religion discredited in her supreme law,
the Bible, the gloom of the everlasting darkness sets in upon
the human soul.

" That faith rests upon a poor foundation which is shaken by
humanitarian sentimentality. With Caples the authority of
The Book was sufficient. No theory of abstract right was to be
taken as against it. Its statements were all true, its laws all
right, its teachings all divine. When you have heard its voice
the last word has been spoken. Eliphaz, the Temanite, and all
the rest of them, to the generous and intellectual Elihu, may
contend and dogmatize, and Job may answer and asseverate,
till God speaks. Silence and submission must follow His voice.
The philosophy that finds fault with His word is blasphemy.
That word is articulate in the Bible to-day, and the philanthropy
that sets itself up to be purer than the teachings of an apostle
of Christ is of the wicked one. The clamor for an ' anti-slavery
God ' is infidel in the last degree. Faith bows before the Bible,
worships God and exclaims, ' Speak, Lord, for thy servant
heareth.' To the soul that realizes its true relation to God he
may say anything. Even Isaac will be sacrificed. But the
Abolitionist will not sacrifice his ideas to the God of the Bible.
Of course, he is an infidel.

"Just so the socialist has ideas. He sees intolerable hard-
ships and evils in the institution of marriage. Many hard cases
occur. Many a Socrates finds that his spouse is another
Xantippe. Men and "their wives become distasteful to each
other sometimes. It is dreadful to bind them together till
death. So says the oracle of free love. But the institution of
marriage is recognized by the Bible. ' Then away with the
Bible.' And Free-loveism rests on the same foundation as Ab-
olitionism. Both assail t^he Bible from the same ground of
attack. With both it is discredited as recognizing an institu-
tion incompatible with their ideas of right. They are alike sys-
tems of infidelity.

"The Bible was the depository of everything that is good.
The conditions of society given under its sanctions, though the
evils of a depraved humanity may evermore appear in them,
were the best possible in the present state. An * incompatible '
man and woman might feel it to be intolerable to continue
through life in the sacred relation of man and wife, but an in-
finitely worse thing would be the destruction of the family, the

184 ARMY LIFE.

very corner-stone of civilization and virtue. The father of a
family may be a monster, and his administration of home affairs
may be most disastrous to domestic peace, but the children that
are in the world are in infinitely better case than could be pos-
sible in the absence of the paternal relation. He who wonld
cure the evils of society by abolishing the institutions of the
Bible but throws himself from the reeling ship, which will yet

survive the tempest, into the drowning waves of the sea.
*********

" Aside from all reasoning on the subject, the fact that Aboli-
tionism bred disrespect for the Bible was to him cause of
anxiety. In this Book we have the will of God. Our hope of
heaven is in it. All that is worth having in time or eternity is
there. As a question involving religion, then, he opposed the
Abolitionist theory with all his power, and felt that Churches
infested with it were in league with the infidel. This was the
more alarming when those Churches began to take action in
their ecclesiastical assemblies on political subjects. He saw
that it was the entering wedge of ruinous tendencies. When
the Conferences of the Northern Church began to appoint com-
mittees on the state of the country and adopt resolutions bear-
ing on the political issues before the people, he thought that
the American mind would spurn them as encroaching on the
vital traditions against ecclesiastical interference in civil affairs
which he believed to be sacred in the eyes of the people. But
as this and political preaching began to become a recognized
fact, aHd the anti-slavery fanaticism clapped its hands, he
learned that nothing was sacred to it but its own success. The
Constitution of the United States, an instrument as sacred with
him as anything not emanating directly from the Bible could be,
they denounced, as ' a league with hell.' For it they seemed to
have lost all respect. At length a President of the United States
was elected with the celebrated declaration before the people
that k the Union could not continue to exist part slave and part
free.' He was the candidate of a section in avowed hostility
against an institution of the other section, which was guaran-
teed by constitutional compact. He was, in fact, elected by the
Abolitionist vote.

" Mr. Caples participated fully in the alarm felt throughout
the South, A party which was purely sectional, in which many
of the most influential men were avowedly hostile to the Con-

ABMT LIFE. 185

stitution, and all of them determined to defeat the Constitution
in its protection of Southern institutions, though they purposed
doing it under 'Constitutional forms,' had attained supreme
power in the Government. He felt that the Southern States
were justified in resorting to the extreme measure of secession.
They had graver grievances, to use his own language, ' than the
thirteen Colonies had when they resisted the encroachments of
the British Government upon their chartered rights.' He was
a State Rights Democrat, and believed in the right of secession.
Even if that doctrine were not correct, he believed ' the occa-
sion justified revolution.'

" He had studied politics more closely than I had, and I con-
fess that I listened to him on these topics with the most intense
interest. Events already transpiring had aroused an interest
never before felt. It had always seemed to. me a matter of
course that things would always go on right in ' the Govern-
ment.' What he said was a sort of revelation to me. Hence it
was engraven on my mind, so that I could not forget it if I
would. With such views, and his strong sense of justice and
right, he could not but be a pronounced advocate of the South-
ern cause."1

The sentence with which this last paragraph closes
might well have been written «f Marvin himself, and
it needed not the characteristic confession with which
he concludes, to convince the observant reader that
he has, all along, in the sentiments which he attrib-
utes to his friend Caples, been talking out of his own
heart. A still later token of the unabated warmth
of his Southern feelings and attachments may be
seen in his article on the " M. E. Churches, North
and South," published in the Southern Review of
April, 1872, and afterwards republished in a duo-
decimo volume by the Southwestern Book and Pub-
lishing Company He is speaking there of the
!Life of Caples, p. 254 et seq.

186 ARMY LIFE.

seizure and holding, by the Northern Church, during
and after the war, of the property of the Southern
Church, and the relation of this fact to the question
of organic union between the two Churches. The
following may be taken as a specimen of the tone of
his argument :

" No Conference, nor any Bishop, lifted a voice against this
appropriation of property that was not their own. The fair in-
ference is, that all, with a common lust of acquisition, strength-
ened each other's hands in the crime.

" To make the matter worse, they undertook to deny the deed.
Their weekly press scrupled at no false statement. Annual
Conferences resorted to the most disingenous evasions. Even
the General Conference of 18G8, upon a memorial from the
Holston Conference of the Church, South, met the facts with
statements in the last degree unfair and untrue.

u Taking all the facts together, we can do no otherwise than
hold the Church, North, responsible for this predatory move-
ment. Many of their preachers were leaders in it. The prop-
erty was officially reported at the Conference sessions, and
published in the official statistics of the Church. The Bishops,
with full knowledge of the facts, appointed men to occupy these
houses. From no quarter, even yet, so far as we know, has there
been any official rebuke or disclaimer. It is, by every token,
the public, formal, official crime of the Methodist Episcopal
Church. Of course, there are bad men in all churches. Bot
we suppose there have been few, if any, instances of Protestant
Churches committing such a public breach of fundamental
morals in any official way. This Church, as a Church, stands
thus convicted before the world. Every particular Bishop,
every particular preacher, every particular editor, by his silence
and Ins acquiescence, becomes particeps criminis.

" There was a rare spectacle at Memphis, during the session
of the General Conference of 1870. A Bishop of the Northern
Church stood before the Conference to plead for union. We
looked upon him with emotions of a strange sort. He had a
meek expression, and spoke tremulously. His voice seemed to
be seeping gently, though his eyes were not. There he stood
and pleaded for union, and even used the name of Christ. We

ABMY LIFE. 187

were amazed! The import of what he sartf, taken with the
facts, which he did not say, was this: 'We have been taking
your property wherever we could, and keeping it as long as we
could. I have myself been appointing men to occupy your
houses whenever the opportunity arose. But O, dear brethren,
let us love one another and let us be one in Christ!' The whole
scene was a study for the psychologist.
*********

" This bad history has made reunion impossible for at least a
generation. There can not be the confidence and respect for
the men engaged in this business which would make Church
fellowship with them profitable, or even tolerable. This is a
piece of history which Southern men can by no means consent
to identify themselves with. The actors in it must die before
any actual union can be consummated, or even thought of with
complacency."

It may be said, again, that the tone of such writ-
ings unfailingly indicates the continued ardor of
Marvin's feelings on the Southern question. And
it is the proper work of biography to present men
as they were. He was a positive man, formed his
opinions deliberately, and held them with great
tenacity He used strong language because he had
strong and ardent feelings, and it is not too much to
say that, in his opinion, the war, with all its North-
ern causes and concomitants, was one gigantic and
Heaven-defying wrong inflicted upon an innocent,
injured, helpless, and long-suffering people. He
regarded them as in no sense to blame, from the
beginning to the bloody end. Their fathers had but
purchased and owned the slaves which had been
kidnapped in Africa and brought to them by the
fathers of the men who made war on them on ac-
count of their possession. They had descended to

188 AJIMY LIFE.

them as a sacred civil institution of their country,
and their perpetual right in them had been guaran-
teed by the constitutional compact under which they
entered the Federal Union. The instrument itself,
as well as the debates of the Convention which
formed it, both go to show that, in the clearly ex-
pressed intention of its trainers, the violation of this
guarantee must operate, in right, in law, and in fact,
a dissolution of that union of the States which was
explicitly based upon it. The North, having sold
its slaves, for the most part, to the South, proceeded
thence to abolish slavery within their own jurisdic-
tion, and to become rapidly sentimental on the sub-
ject of the abstract right of the peculiar institution.
Then the constitutional guarantee was violated time
and again and in many ways : — in a constant and
ever-growing hostility ; in unjust, unequal, and op-
pressive legislation ; in under-ground railroads,
which disembogued in Northern towns and cities,
and carried a const ant Iv-increasine; freight of stolen
men and women ; and finally, by the organization of
a great political party (whose avowed purpose was
the violation of the constitution), and the seating of
its chief in the highest office of the government.
Then the South sinply declared the long-apparent
fact that the union was and ought to be dissolved.
This was the whole ease and crime of secession ; to
punish which, a million of human lives, and a thou-
sand millions of treasure were spilled like water on
the bloody ground of civil war. As he regarded

ABMY LIFE. 189

the conflict it was not a question of right, but of
strength and passion, which was settled by the war.
The right remained where it was at the beginning of
the struggle, with the humbled, beaten, and broken
South. It is hidden out of vulgar sight under the
mountain of her wrongs. But a buried right is like
the imprisoned giant of .iEtna — it keeps its guardians
uneasy — and verily, there be always some who, even
on the Olympian heights of triumphant wrong, whis-
per, with white lips, "Enceladus will rise ! "

Such, in substance, were his honest convictions,
such the opinions he entertained, and from the quo-
tations already made it is easily perceived he did not
hesitate to avow them whenever in his judgment
occasion called for it.

Finding himself led, as has been stated, by the
legitimate service of his Church and not by political
zeal, to the side of the men who were waging an
unequal warfare with a mightier power in defense of
what he and they deemed sacred right and truth,
and being Providentially hindered from returning to
his work in Missouri, Marvin stayed with them to the
end. There, as everywhere, he was a true Meth-
odist preacher — a faithful and devoted servant of his
Master. He did not forget or neglect his high call-
ing. He was not carried away by political enthu-
siasm. He made no violent or inflammatory har-
rangues to the soldiers. But he talked to them of
" Jesus and the Resurrection." He was a minister
of consolation to the wounded, the sick, and the sad.

190 ARMY LIFE.

In the hurried march, the disorderly retreat, the des-
titute and unfurnished ramp, he was always the
same, quiet, gentle, and unwearied nurse, counselor,
and friend. When opportunity was afforded him,
he pieaehed ; and his word was with strange and
glorious power Many were converted ; and while
some of these passed from the battle-field or hos-
pital to the realms of everlasting peace and health,
others have lingered to remember, to their dying
day, the pale, sad face and thrilling tones of him
who first pointed them to l< the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world."

From the camp he went to the regular work of
the ministry in charge of churches, and his family
having rejoined him at the close of the war, he re-
mained laboring in Texas until the spring of 1866,
when the Church called him to work elsewhere.

"Rev J B. Tullis, of Texas, bears the following
testimony in regard to the labors in that State:

"I have :is high an opinion of Bishop Marvin as any man
should have of another man. I met. him the first day lie arrived
in Texas; he was with me much in 1N(>1. and labored faithfully
with me at several points on my distriet. I employed him to
iill Marshall Station, in the Fust Texas Conference, after the
dentil of 0. L. Ilamill in February, ls(;.~>. I employed him in
ISGfi to fill the same station. In April, 18(i(>, he was elected
Bishop. We helped do that."

(ttUnyttv fflhitttttrfk.

THE EPISCOPACY

THE Episcopacy of the Methodist Episcopal
Church has a history. That history has as
yet been written only in detachments — a little here
and a little there — scattered "like Orient pearls at
random strung" on the thread of nearly an hundred
years. To gather some of these scraps and present
them in their connections, one to the other, so that
the general reader may have at least a tolerably clear
understanding of the matter, is one of the first ob-
jects of this chapter And perhaps it were well to
begin at the beginning.

The English word "Church" occurs in the New
Testament one hundred and thirteen times, and cor-
responding with this, the Greek word "Ecclesia"
occurs one hundred and eleven times. In Acts xix —
27, where the English has "robbers of churches,"
the Greek has " sacriligious persons;" and in 1
Peter, v — 13, there is no word in the Greek Testa-
ment to correspond with the English word Church,

102 THE EPItiCOFA C Y.

as found italicised in that place. Now what do these
words moan? What idea is conveyed by them?

Any one may see what the lexicographers say,
and learn what definition they give. We can easily
ascertain that the word ecclesia, as used by the
Greeks, meant an assembly of any kind, good or
bad — hence Xenophon used it in reference to a mob.
And we can as easily learn what the word ''church "
means, according to the lexicons. We will learn
from them that it is derived from two Greek words
which signify "the House of the Lord." But what
do they mean as used in the New Testament? The
answer is : In all cases where they are there found,
they mean either : 1. The aggregate — the totality of
those in every place who believed in Christ, feared
God, and wrought righteousness — loved Christ and
kept his commandments: or 2. A particular com-
pany of believers, united here or there, where they
heard the word, received the ordinances, and, by
Christian communion and fellowship — by exhorting,
admonishing, and comforting one another, helped
each other to work out their salvation.

In the Xlllth Article of Religion of the Meth-
odist Churches, which itself is but an abridgement
of the XlXth Article of the Church of England, it
is thus expressed : ** The visible Church of Christ is
a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure
word of God is preached and the sacraments duly
administered, according to Christ's ordinance, in all
those things that of necessity are requisite to the

THE EPISCOPACY. 193

same." With this view the Westminster Confesssion
substantially agrees. So also does the Heidleberg
Cathechism, and so do Christian peoples generally

A late writer1 has some excellent and well-timed
remarks on the significance of the word Ecclesia,
agreeing, with Donnegan and others, that it was used
by the Athenians to signify an assembly of citizens
called out of the mass by the herald or crier, for
civil functions pertaining to the public weal. Hence,
companies of persons called out from the masses of
men by the heralds of the gospel were called ecclesia,
and were eclect, or eclected, that is, called out from
the world, to citizenship in the divine commonwealth
or kingdom. Taking this word eclect from the Latin,
we have elect, and hence the true meaning and real
significance of a word about which there has been so
much bitter controversy, in which the word has been
used to denote almost anything else than its original
and true significance.

The Church, then, is a particular company of be-
lievers, or the aggregate of believers in Christ. In
this latter sense the word is used less frequently
in the New Testament than is the former Examples
may be found in Math, xvi — 18, "Upon this rock
will I build my Church." Acts ii — 47, "The Lord
added to the Church (that is to the entire body of
believers) daily-" Then Eph. iii — 21, "Unto Him
be glory in the Church." See, also, Heb. xii — 23,

!Dr. Bethune's Lectures on the Catechism, Vol. II., Sec. 25r
p. 58, et seq.

194 THE EI'ISCOI'ACY,

Col. i — 24, and a few other places where the word
is obviously used as stated.

For evidence that the word is also and more gen-
erallv used to denote a particular company of believ-
ers, read of the church in Smyrna, the church in
Pergamos, the church in Thyatira, the church ///
Sardis, the church in Philadelphia — the church that
was in the house of Priscilla and Aquilla — the church
that was in the house of Philemon, and the church
that was in the house of Nymphas. These could
have been none other than companies of believers
which met and worshiped at the places designated.
Then when we consult the history of Apostolic
preaching and founding churches, as that history is
contained in the Acts of the- Apostles, and here and
there indicated in the Epistles, we find the Apostles
ordained elders in every church, and at certain places
they " gathered the church together," or saluted the
church and addressed their letters to the church at
this, that, or the other place — all of which goes
clearly to show in what sense the word was then
used and what signification was attached to it — par-
ticular (uynijxrnies of believers in Christ.

From the earlier times these churches, or some of
them at least., had their deacons, or servants — their
presbyters, or elders, and their bishops, or over-
seers. That some of these deacons preached the
gospel there can be no doubt, but that all did so is
not so clear ; and even now it might be very difficult
to prove from the Scriptures whether they really

THE EPISCOPACY. 195

constituted a separate and distinct order in the regu-
lar ministry of the Church. The word " diakonos, in
its proper and primitive sense, denotes a servant who
is always near his master, waits on him at table, and
always ready to obey his commands." And the
first deacons of the church were selected not by the
Apostles, nor were they directly called of God as
were the Apostles, but were chosen by the church,
at the suggestion and under the direction of the

CO

Apostles, for the reason, that it was not proper they
— the Apostles — should "leave the word of God
and serve at tables." When thus selected by the
church they were appointed or confirmed in the
office by the Apostles. (See Acts vi., 1 — 6.)

In some instances in the primitive church females
were invested with this office, and called deaconesses,
such as the one mentioned by Paul in Rom. xvi — 1.
"These," says Calmet, who is regarded as excellent
authority, "served the church by visiting and ad-
ministering to the wants of those of their own sex."
But then the Apostles themselves were sometimes,
in the New Testament, called deacons. In 2 Cor.
vi — 4, Eph. iii — 7, Col. i — 23, the word didkonos is
rendered minister, and applied to the Apostles. So
we can draw no certain proof from the word itself,
further than that it was used to designate a servant,
or minister, and that service or ministering might be
on the part of an Apostle or an elder, and even
Christ himself is called the deacon (minister) of
circumcision (Rom. xv — 8).

196 THE EPISCOPACY.

A close inquiry into the history of the primitive
church reveals the fact that the word signifying ser-
vant or minister was variously applied. And further,
that there wore probably two orders of deacons — 1.
"deacons of the table, whose principal business it
was to collect and distribute alms ; and, 2. deacons
of the word, whose business it was to preach and
instruct the people/' The first order passed away
with the abolition of the community of goods, and
the second order was continued. Philip first served
tables, and afterward devoted himself entirely to
preaching the word. (Compare Acts vi — 5 with
Acts viii — 4, etc.)

Still further : It is sufficiently clear that deacons
in the primitive church gave the bread and wine in
the Eucharist, and carried it to those who were
absent, and that they also preached, administered
baptism, and were set apart by the imposition of
hands.

In this two-fold character of the deaconate in the
primitive church we may find the origin of practices
by denominations of the present day Some follow
the practice of having the "deacons of the tables,"
others that of " deacons for preaching and teaching
the people," and thus both claim the practice of
the primitive church as authority for their course.

As to Presbyters or Elders and Bishops, the
question of their identity as an order in the ministry
is too well and too firmly settled to need discussion
now Stillingfleet, Lord King, and others of former

THE EPISCOPACY. 197

days, to say nothing of more recent writers, have
placed that question whence it can not be removed.
Hence, with all due respect and with becoming mod-
esty, it may be said that when Bishops Coke and
Asbury in their notes, as quoted in a preceding chap-
ter, sought to justify the Presiding Eldership as a
necessary adjunct to the episcopacy, they occupied
grounds which are scarcely tenable except as it ap-
plied to the Methodist Church, whose polity they
were explaining and defending. On the grounds,
however, of abstract right and practical utility, it
may be fully justified.

As to church government it is by no means diffi-
cult to understand how different forms may have
arisen. Suppose, in Apostolic times, a church were
founded in some region quite remote from all other
churches, Elders for it were ordained, and then the
founders passed on and left its people to be guided
by the general teachings of the word they had re-
ceived subsequently supplemented by the written
gospel and inspired epistles. In its comparative
isolation its government would necessarily have been
congregational. And" so it may have remained for
years and years, and others hearing of its peace and
prosperity may have followed the example, and in
course of time a congregational form be adopted by
many Then suppose another church, founded else-
where but under similar circumstances. It also was
in isolation, but being more prosperous in regard to
numerical increase than the other, it sent out colo-

198 THE EPISCOPACY.

nies here, there, and yonder These colonies would
naturally remain more or less in sympathy and fel-
lowship with the Mother Church and look to it for
advice and encouragement, and thus there would in
time spring up, by consent of parties, either a pres-
bvterial form of government or the colonies would
request the pastor of the Mother Church to exercise
a general oversight of all, and this, followed by
his successors, would make the form episcopal, the
other presbyters or elders, agreeing that he, the over-
seer or bishop of all, should exercise certain minis-
terial functions from which, for the sake of greater
good, they would refrain. And this is understood
to be the principle on which is founded the episco-
pacy of the Methodist Episcopal Churches. Certain
rights and privileges belonging to the Elders as a
body, with certain duties devolving upon them, are
for convenience and the securing of greater success,
transferred to one or more of their number by whom
alone these rights are subsequently exercised. For
instance, the right of ordaining other ministers in-
heres in the Eldership, and they relegate the duty to
one or more of their number and set him or them
apart for a special work, as Paul and Barnabas were
separated for a special work by command of the Holy
Ghost.

This brings us more directly to the consideration
of episcopacy as held and practiced among Meth-
odists.

The separation of the American Colonies from the

THE EPISCOPACY. 199

mother country made it necessary that there be also

a separation of the Methodists of this country from

those of Great Britain. This necessity was felt and

acknowledged by all ; hence provisions were made in

1784 to meet it. In his letter of September 10th of

that year, directed to the brethren in America, Mr.

Wesley said :

" Lord King's account of the Primitive Church convinced me
many years ago that Bishops and Presbyters are the same order,
and consequently have the same right to ordain."

Appreciating the condition and necessities of the
brethren in America and acting upon the principle
stated, he, with Rev Mr. Creighton and Rev. Thomas
Coke, Presbyters of the Church of England, pro-
ceeded to ordain Richard Whatcoat and Thomas
Vasey to the Eldership in the Church of God, and
this Presbytery selected and ordained Dr Coke as
general overseer or superintendent for the American
Societies. Soon after, these newly ordained men,
Coke, Whatcoat and Vasey started for this country,
which they reached on the 3d of November, and a
general conference of the preachers was called, and
met at Baltimore on the 25th of the following month,
at which it was

" Besolved, We will form ourselves into an Episcopal Church
under the direction of superintendents, elders, deacons, and
helpers, according to the forms of ordination annexed to our
Liturgy and the Form of Discipline set forth in these minutes."

This was the organic law under which the Church
was constituted. The Liturgy named was an
abridgement of that of the Church of England

200 THE EPISCOPACY

which Mr Wesley had prepared, caused to be printed
and sent over for their use. The minutes referred to
were what weife termed " The Larger Minutes," con-
taining the rules and regulations adopted from time
to time by the British Conference, and by which the
Societies in America had been governed to that date.
From these minutes the First Discipline of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church was constructed. The Lit-*
argy was printed in 1784 and contained the twenty-
five Articles of Religion — forms for ordaining min-
isters, etc.

Of the eighty-three preachers then in the connec-
tion sixty were present at that conference. Then
the Annual Minutes for 1785 record the fact that the
formation of an independent church with an episco-
pal form of government was effected by a unanimous
vote. Then in the edition of the Discipline for 1792
appeared the chapter and sections concerning the
" Origin of the Methodist Episcopal Church," but
the substance of it, under a different heading, was in
the Discipline of 1789. This chapter or section re-
mained in each subsequent edition of the Discipline
until a comparatively recent date, and therefore need
not be copied here.

Thus far, in regard to the origin and early history
of Methodist Episcopacy, The question next to be
considered pertains to the manner in which this
episcopacy has been construed and understood from
time to time.

Though the pulrlished journals of that conference

THE EPISCOPACY. 201

are silent on the subject, history says, the General
Conference of 1796 requested the Bishops to prepare
explanatory and defensive notes on the several chap-
ters of the Discipline for the benefit of both preachers
and people. This was done. Such notes were pre-
pared, and the General Conference of 1800 ordered
that they be printed in such form as to be " bound
up with the Discipline." This also was done. By
this order the Conference virtually adopted those
notes. And now whatever is found therein may
properly and safely be regarded as having the full
endprsemeut of both the Bishops and the General
Conference of that date.

In section iv of the Discipline, as it then was, " Of
the Election and Consecration of Bishops, and of
their duty," the "notes" say:

"In considering the present subject, we must observe that
nothing has been introduced into Methodism by the present
episcopal form of government, which was not before fully ex-
ercised by Mr. Wesley. He presided in the Conferences; fixed
the appointments of the preachers for the several circuits;
changed, received or suspended preachers wherever he judged
that necessity required it; traveled through the European con-
nection at large; superintended the spiritual and temporal
business, and consecrated two bishops, Thomas Coke and Alex-
ander Mather, one before the present episcopal plan took place
in America, and the other afterward, besides ordaining elders
and deacons. But the authority of Mr. Wesley and that of the
bishops in America differ in the following important points :

" 1. Mr. Wesley was the patron of all the Methodist pulpits
in Great Britain and Ireland for life, the sole right of nomina-
tion being invested in him by all the deeds of settlement, which
gave him exceeding great power. But the bishops in America
possess no such power. The property of the preaching-houses
is invested in the trustees, and the right of nomination to the

202 THE EPISCOPACY.

pulpits, in the General Conference, and In such as the General
Conference shall from time to time appoint. This division of
power in favor of the General Conference was absolutely neces-
sary. Without it the itinerant plan could not exist for any long
continuance. The trustees would probably, in many instances,
from their located situation, insist upon having their favorite
preachers stationed in their circuits, or endeavor to prevail on
the preachers themselves to locate among them, or choose some
other settled minister for their chapels. In other cases, the

trustees of preaching-houses in different circuits would probably
insist upon having the same popular or favorite preachers.

Here, then, lies the grand difference between Mr. Wesley's
authority, in the present instance, and that of our American
bishops. The former, as (under God) the father of the con-
nection, was allowed to have the sole, legal, independent nomi-
nation of preachers to all the chapels; the latter are entirely
dependent on the General Conference.

" But why, may it be asked, does the Generel Conference
lodge the power of stationing the preachers in the episcopacy?
We answer: On account of their entire confidence in it. If
ever, through improper conduct, it loses that confidence in any
considerable decree, the General Conference will, upon evidence
given, in a proportionable degree, take from it this branch of
its authority. But if ever it evidently betrays a spirit of
tyranny or partiality, and this can be proved before the General
Conference, the whole will be taken from it; and we pray God,
that in such case the power may be invested in other hands!
And alas! who would envy anyone the power? There is no sit-
uation in which a bishop can be placed, no branch of duty he
can possibly exercise, so delicate, or which so exposes him to
the jealousies not only of false but of true brethren, as this.
The removal of preachers from district to district, and from
circuit to circuit, very nearly concerns them, and touches their
tenderest feelings; and it requires no small portion of grace for
a preacher to be perfectly contented with his appointment, when
he is stationed in a circuit where the societies are small, the rides
long, and the fare coarse. Anyone, therefore, may easily see,
from the nature of man, that though the bishop has to deal with
some of the best of men, he will sometimes raise himself op-
posers, who, by rather over-rating their own abilities, may
judge him to be partial in respect to their appointments; and

THE EPISCOPACY. 203

these circumstances would weigh down his mind to such a de-
gree as those who are not well acquainted with the difficulties
which necessarily accompany public and important stations
among mankind, can hardly conceive.

" May we not add a few observations concerning the high ex-
pediency, if not necessity of the present plan. How could an
itinerant ministry be preserved through this extensive continent
if the yearly conferences were to station the preachers? They
would, of course, be taken up with the sole consideration of the
spiritual and temporal interests of that part of the connection,
the direction of which was intrusted to them. The necessary
consequence of this mode of proceeding would probably, in
less than an age, be the division of the body and the independence of
each yearly conference. The conferences would be more and
more estranged from each other for want of a mutual exchange
of preachers ; and that grand spring, the union of the body at large,
by which, under divine grace, the work is more and more ex-
tended through this vast country, would be gradually weakened,
till at last it might be entirely destroyed. The connection would
no more be enabled to send missionaries to the Western States
and Territories, in proportion to their rapid population. The
grand circulation of ministers would be at an end, and a mortal
stab given to the itinerant plan. The surplus of preachers in
one conference could Mot be drawn out to supply the deficien-
cies of others, through declensions, locations, deaths, etc., and
the revivals in one part of the continent could not be rendered
beneficial to the others. Our grand plan, in all its parts, leads
to an itinerant ministry. Our bishops are traveling bishops.
All the different orders which compose our conferences are em-
ployed in the traveling line ; and our local preachers are, in some
degree* traveling preachers. Everything is kept moving as far
as possible ; and we will be bold to say that, next to the grace
of God, there is nothing like this for keeping the whole body
alive from the center to the circumference, and for the continual
extension of that circumference on every hand. And we verily
believe, that if our episcopacy should, at any time, through
tyrannical or immoral conduct, come under the severe censure
of the General Conference, the members thereof would see it
highly for the glory of God to preserve the present form, and
only to change the men.

"2. Mr. Wesley, as the venerable founder (under God), of

204 THE EPISCOPACY.

the whole Methodist society, governed without any responsi-
bility whatever ; and the universal respect and veneration of
both the preachers and people for him, made them cheerfully
submit to this; nor was there ever, perhaps, a mere human be-
ing who used so much power better, or with a purer eye to the
Redeemer's glory, than that blessed man of God. But the
American bishops are as responsible as any of the preachers.
They are perfectly subject to the General Conference. They are
indeed conscious that the conference would neither degrade nor
censure them, unless they deserve it. They have, on the one
hand, the fullest confidence in their brethren; and, on the other,
esteem the confidence which their brethren place in them, as
the highest earthly honor they can receive.

"But this is not all. They are subject to be tried by seven
elders and two deacons, as prescribed above, for" any immorality,
or supposed immorality; and may be suspended by two-thirds
of these, not only from all public offices, but even from being
private members of the society, till the ensuing General Con-
ference. This mode subjects the bishops to a trial before a court
of judicature considerably inferior to that of a yearly confer-
ence. For there is not one of the yearly conferences which will
not. probably, be attended by more presiding elders and dea-
cons than the conference which is authorized to try a bishop,
the yearly conferences consisting of from thirty to sixty mem-
bers. And we can, without scruple, assert that there are no
bishops of any other episcopal church upon earth who are sub-
ject to so strict a trial as the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in America. We trust they will never need to be influ-
enced by motives drawn from the fear of temporal or ecclesi-
astical punishments, in order to keep from vice; but if they
do, may the rod which hangs over them have its due effect; or
may they be expelled from the church, as 4 salt which hath lost
its savor, and is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out
and trodden under foot of men."

" 3. Mr. Wesley had the entire management of all the confer-
ence funds and the product-! of the books. It is true, he ex-
pended all upon the work of God, and for charitable purposes;
and rather than appropriate Che least of it to his own use re-
fused, even when lie was about seventy years of age, to travel
in a carriage, till his friends in London and Bristol entered into
a private subscription for the extraordinary expense. That

THE EPISCOPACY. 205

great man of God might have heaped up thousands upon thou-
sands, if he had been so inclined ; and yet he died worth nothing
but a little pocket money, the horses and carriage in which he
traveled, and the clothes he wore. But our American bishops
have no probability of being rich. For not a cent of the public
money is at their disposal ; the conferences have the entire direc-
tion of the whole. Their salary is sixty-four dollars a year;
and their traveling expenses are defrayed. And with this salary
they are to travel about six thousand miles a year, ' in much
patience,' and sometimes 'in afflictions, in necessities, in dis-
tresses, in labors, in watchings, in fastings,' through ' honor and
dishonor, evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet
true; as unknown and yet well known; as dying, and, behold,'
they ; live ; as chastened, and not killed ; as sorrowful, yet always
rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing,
and yet possessing all things;' and, we trust they can each of
them through grace say, in their small measure, with the great
apostle, that ' they are determined not to know anything, save
Jesus Christ, and him crucified ; yea, doubtless, and count all
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus their Lord ; for whom they have suffered the loss of all
things, and do count them but dung that they may win Christ.'

" We have drawn this comparison between our venerable
father and the American bishops, to show to the world that they
possess not, and, we may add, they aim not to possess that
power which he exercised and had a right to exercise, as the
father of the connection ; that, on the contrary, they are per-
fectly dependent ; that their power, their usefulness, themselves,
are entirely at the mercy of the General Conference, and, on
the charge of immorality, at the mercy of two-thirds of the
little conference of nine.

" To these observations \ve may add : 1. That a branch of the
episcopal office, which, in every episcopal church upon earth,
since the first introduction of Christianity, has been considered
as essential to it, namely the power of ordination, is singularly
limited in our bishops. For they not only have no power to
ordain a person for the episcopal office till he be first elected by
the General Conference, but they possess no authority to ordain
an elder or a traveling deacon till he be first elected by a yearly
conference ; or a local deacon, till he obtain a testimonial, sig-
nifying the approbation of the society to which he belongs,

206 THE EPISCOPACY

countersigned by the general stewards of the circuit, three elders,
three deacons, and three traveling preachers. They are, there-
fore, not under the temptation of ordaining, through interest,
affection, or any other improper motive; because it is not in
their power so to do. They have, indeed, authority to suspend
the ordination of an elected person, because they are answer-
able to God for the abuse of their office, and the command of
the apostle, 'Lay hands suddenly on no man,' is absolute; and
we trust, where conscience was really concerned, and they had
sufficient reason to exercise their power of suspension, they
would do it even to the loss of the esteem of their brethren,
which is more dear to them than life; yea, even to the loss of
their usefulness in the church, which is more precious to them
than all things here below. But every one must be immedi-
ately sensible how cautious they will necessarily be, as men of
wisdom, in the exercise of this suspending power. For unless
they had such weighty reason for the exercise of it as would
give some degree of satisfaction to the conference which had
made the election, they would throw themselves into difficul-
ties, out of which they would not be able to extricate them-
selves but by the meekest and wisest conduct, and by repara-
tion to the injured person.

" 2. The bishops are obliged to travel till the General Confer-
ence pronounces them worn out or superannuated ; for that cer-
tainly is the meaning of the answer to the sixth question of this
section. "What :i restriction! Where is the like in any other
episcopal church? It would be a disgrace to our episcopacy to
have bishops settled on their plantations here and there, evi-
dencing to the world that, instead of breathing the spirit of
their office, they could, without remorse, lay down their crown,
and bury the most important talents God has given to men!
We would rather choose that our episcopacy should be blotted
out from the face of the earth, than be spotted with such dis-
graceful conduct! All the episcopal churches in the world are
conscious of the dignity of the episcopal office. The greatest
part of them endeavor to preserve this dignity by large salaries,
splendid dresses and other appendages of pomp and splendor.
But if an episcopacy lias neither the dignity which arises from
these worldly trappings, nor that infinitely superior dignity
which is the attendant of labor, of suffering and enduring hard-
ship for the cause of Christ, and of a venerable old age, the

THE E PI SCOP A CY. 207

concluding scene of a life devoted to the service of God, it
instantly becomes the disgrace of a church and the just ridicule
of the world !

" Some may think that the mode of traveling which the
bishops are obliged to pursue is attended with little difficulty,
and much pleasure. Much pleasure they certainly do experi-
ence, because they know that they move in the will of God, and
that the Lord is pleased to own their feeble labors. But if to
travel through the heat and the cold, the rain and the snow, the
swamps and the rivers, over the mountains and through the wil-
derness, lying for nights together on the bare ground and in
log houses, open to the wind on every side, fulfilling their ap-
pointments, as far as possible, whatever be the hindrance — if
these be little difficulties, then our bishops have but little to en-
dure.

" We have already quoted so many texts of Scripture in de-
fense of episcopacy and the itinerant plan, that we need only
refer our reader to the notes on the first and third sections.
The whole tenor of St. Paul's epistles to Timothy and Titus
clearly evidences, that they were invested, on the whole, with
abundantly more power than our bishops; nor does it appear
that they were responsible to any but God and the apostle. The
texts quoted in the notes on the third section, in defense of the
itinerant plan, we would particularly recommend to the reader's
attention; as we must insist upon it, that the general itinerancy
would not probably exist for any length of time on this extensive
continent, if the bishops were not invested with that authority
which they now possess. They alone travel through the whole
connection, and therefore have such a view of the whole, as no
yearly conference can possibly have.

One bishop, with the elders present, may consecrate a bishop
who has been previously elected by the General Conference.
This is agreeable to the Scriptures. We read, 2 Tim. 1, 6, '1
put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift, of God which
is in thee, by the putting on of my hands.' Here we have the im-
position of the hands of the apostle. Again, we read, 1 Tim.
4, 14, 'Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee
by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.''
Here we have the laying on of the hands of the elders. And by
comparing both passages, it is evident that the imposition of
hands was, both in respect to the apostle and the elders, for the

208 THE EPISCOPACY.

same gift. Nor is the idea that three bishops are necessary to
consecrate a bishop, grounded on any authority whatever, drawn
from the Scriptures, or the practice of the apostolic age.

"The authority given to, or rather declared to cxi>t in, the
General Conference, that in case there shall be no bi.»hop re-
maining in the church, they shall elect a bishop, and authorize
the elders to consecrate him, will not admit of an objection, ex-
cept on the supposition that the fable of an uninterrupted apos-
tolic succession be allowed to be true. St. Jerome, who was as
strong an advocate for episcopacy as perhaps any in the primi-
tive church, informs us that in the church of Alexandria (which
was, in ancient times, one of the most respectable of the
churches) , the college of presbyters not only elected a bishop
on the decease of the former, but consecrated him by the im-
position of their own hands solely, from the time of St. Mark,
their first bishop, to the time of Dionysius,-whieh was a space
of about two hundred years ; and the college of bresbyters in
ancient times answered to our General Conference."

Such were the views entertained by the Bishops
and Elders of the Methodist Episcopal Church at
the close of the last and the beginning, of the present
century The attentive reader will observe with
what clearness and distinctness the right of govern-
ing the church according to the divine law is ac-
knowledged to be vested in the eldership, and how
frankly it is admitted that the Bishops were ** entirely
dependent" on the General Conference, or the aggre-
gate body of Elders. Herein the supremacy of the
General Conference in all matters pertaining to the
government of the church is admitted.

<$toaptM Jmwtwttttu

THE EPISCOPACY CONTINUED.

IT will be well if the reader keep in mind the fact
that the Church of God on earth is a kingdom —
not of this world, but from on high — a Spiritual
kingdom, of which Christ is the King, His word is
the Law — and truly converted men and women are
the subjects. Ministers of the gospel are "Ambas-
sadors for Christ" — that "in Christ's stead" they
may beseech men to be reconciled to God. But the
terms or conditions of reconciliation are fixed. No
man, nor set of men, dare add to or take from them,
on pain of having their part taken from the "book
of life." They must deliver their message as they
received it, without adding thereto or subtracting
therefrom. In like manner, they that rule in the
Church must rule according to the Divine Word —
neither more nor less — that, and that only. Hence,
no man nor set of men have any right to undertake
to make laws for the government of the Church of
God. The law has been divinely given, and heaven
and earth may pass away but not one jot nor one

210 THE EPISCOPACY.

tittle of that law shall ever fail. It has been given
for all time as well as for all peoples. It ehangeth
not. It was, it is, and ever shall be. The adminis-
tration of this law is given to the church — the execu-
tive power vested in the eldership, where it has ever
been and where it will remain. But this eldership
can never confer power itself does not possess. The
body of elders may lawfully set apart one or more
of their number to do a specific work which legiti-
mately belongs to them as a body ; but when they
do so they are bound to see that the work is done,
and that it be done according to the divine law
This is imperative. When the elders of the Meth-
odist Church elect Superintendents or Bishops to
exercise certain functions and perform certain duties
which primarily pertain to the eldership, they con-
stitute these bishops — their agents to do certain
parts of their work, and it is a principle of common
law as well as a dictum of common sense, that
what a man does by another he does himself. So
by every token these elders are bound to superintend
their superintendents and oversee their overseers —
holding them to a strict accountability and never
permitting them to go beyond, nor contrary to, nor
stop short of the requirements of the Divine Word.
By that Word they must be governed ; and their
rules of order, discipline, modes of procedure, etc.,
must all be conformed thereto. So that what is
usually termed church government is, properly
speaking, no more, nor can it lawfully be any more,

THE EPISCOPACY. 211

than a system of rules, regulations, or modes of
procedure, by which the law of the church as found
in the Word of God, is maintained and carried out.
The Divine Word must have its proper place before
and above all else — and all else be subordinated to its
claims. Mistakes on this point have brought many
evils on the church and are likely to bring many more.
Whenever and wherever mere human institutions, in
the form of rules of order, discipline, and the like,
have been made paramount or even tantamount to
God's Word, there has sprung up a class of eccle-
siastical pettifoggers and worldly ministers whose
course has violated the right, shamed justice, and
brought a reproach upon the name of our holy religion.
The spirituality of a church is only preserved, and
can only be preserved, by conformity to the church
law as given by the Great Master. Episcopal, Pres-
byterial, and Congregational forms may all find war-
rant in the sacred Scriptures. They are but different
modes b}^ which it is sought to reach the same end —
obedience to the revealed will of Christ. That which
is commonly called " high-churchism," and which in
reality is hierarchism, finds no sanction in the Word
of God ; but it seems to have entered the minds of
but few persons that spiritual hierarchism may, and
often does, as certainly exist in Congregational and
Presbyterial as in Episcopal forms of government.
Yet such is the fact, though it does not necessarily
inhere in either form. It owes its origin and con-
tinuance to the corruption, arrogance, and " cunning

512 THE EPISCOPACY.

devices'' of men, and not to the essential character
of either or all of these forms of administration.
Our religion must not be allowed to degenerate into
mere ecclesiasticism ; nor must our ecclesiasticism be
abandoned, else fanaticism will run wild and throw
everything into confusion, as has of late been threat-
ened in the professed evangelism of comparatively
irresponsible men and women. There is a wide gulf
between a sound scriptural ecclesiasticism and the
ravings of a run-mad fanaticism. Hierarchism and
fanaticism are the opposite extremes, between which
is found a Scriptural ecclesiasticism that must not
be abandoned nor ignored.

After all that has been said and written on the
subject it were little else than a waste of time and
labor for one now to undertake to prove the Script-
ural character of the Methodist Episcopacy That
has been done, and done so effectually that its bit-
terest opponents now attempt little more than signi-
ficantly shake their heads and give themselves to
undignified and unmanly sneers and attempted ridi-
cule. There is no argument, nor rhyme nor reason
in these, and they may therefore be suffered to
pass as "pnssoth the idle winds."

What Methodist Episcopacy was, and how it was
construed by the assembled wisdom of the church
at the organization in 1784, and down to the close
of the General Conference of 1800, is fully set forth
in the *« Notes" by Bishops Coke and Asbury, as
copied in the preceding chapter. If during the

THE EPISCOPACY. 213

twelve years succeeding, or from 1800 to the dele-
gated General Conference of 1812, there were any
material changes either in the nature, the manner of
construing or understanding, or the practical work-
ings of thit Episcopacy, history fails to record them.

The general reader will need here to be reminded
of the fact that what were called conferences from
1773 to 1784 were merely meetings, assemblages, or
conventions of the preachers acting in this country
under the direction of Mr. Wesley They met
sometimes according to localities, and then were
termed "district conferences," and the general
meetings held annually were called yearly confer-
ences. It was at a general meeting of the preachers
that the church was organized. Then in 1785 they
held three Annual Conferences, one in North Caro-
lina, one in Virginia, and one in Maryland — and
thenceafter the number was increased as the work
extended. In 1792 there was a general conference
of the preachers who had traveled during four years,
and that was the beginning of those quadrennial
meetings called general conferences. These quad-
rennial conferences were continued till 1808^ when
the number of elders was so great as to make the
continuance of that plan impracticable, and pro-
visions were then made for a delegated general con-
ference to be held in 1812. Among those provisions
was the substance of the Six Restrictive Rules.

All this is noted here as preparatory to an inquiry
into what has been called the " Constitution ? ' of the

214 THE EPISCOPACY.

Methodist Episcopal Church. This inquiry is per-
tinent because, if it do not help us to a clearer un-
derstanding of the nature of the Episcopacy, it may
assist us to an understanding of the difference of
opinion existing between the M. E. Church, North,
and the M. E. Church, South, on that particular
point.

During the last thirty years, or ever since 1844,
we have all seen and heard much about the consti-
tution of the church, and the constitutionality or
unconstitutionality of this, that or the other par-
ticular measure. So much, indeed, have we heard
that a close inquiry into the subject becomes matter
of intense interest, as well as of no small importance.
Where, then, do we find the constitution of the
church, and when found what is it?

In the ordinary affairs of life, the " con stitution"
of a society is usually considered to be that which
expresses the conditions under which the society
was organized, and according to which all its opera-
tions are carried on. Agreeably to this understand-
ing, the constitution of the Christian Church must
always be found in the New Testament ; for if a
church be founded on any principles or under con-
ditions other than those expressly taught in, or
clearly inferable from, the New Testament teach-
ings, it is not a Christian Church. This is undenia-
ble. But this is not what is meant in the present
ease ; reference is had to that system of Rules and
Regulations agreed upon by which the provisions of

THE EPISCOPACY. 215

the constitution proper may be carried out, or, if
you please, laws or rules of action adopted under
the constitution and agreeably thereto, in order that
the true ends of church organization may be the
more directly and efficiently secured. This we may
understand to be the meaning of constitution as
used in the connection under notice.

Then, in this sense, what is the constitution of the
Methodist Episcopal Church ? Evidently it is that
which expresses the conditions on which the organiz-
ation was effected, and is found in the answer to
Question 3d in their first Discipline, thus — "We
will form ourselves into an Episcopal Church under
the direction of superintendents, elders, deacons
and helpers, according to the forms of ordination
annexed to our Liturgy, and the form of Discipline
set forth in these minutes."

The constitution, then, as the word is here used,
was found in the Discipline framed in 1784. The
directive or executive power was lodged in "super-
intendents, elders, deacons and helpers." The
duties of each were prescribed, and subsequently
explained in the "Notes" ot the Bishops, as already
seen. This constitution was modified by the Gen-
eral Conference of 1792, and again by the Conference
of 1796, and by that of 1800, also by that of 1808,
at which provisions were made for a Delegated
General Conference, to be held in 1812. That is,
the whole body of the eldership, delegated to a
specific number all their power to make ' ' rules and

216 THE EPISCOPACY.

regulations" for the Church, but under certain re-
strictions, the substance of which stand in the Dis-
cipline to-day, and are known as the " Six Restrictive
Rules." Under these restrictions the Conference of
1808 said, " The General Conference shall meet on
the first day of May, 1812, and thenceforward on
the first day of May once in four years, perpetually,"
and " shall have full powers to make rules and reg-
ulations for our Church." That is, the delegated
General Conference was invested with full powers
to do whatever might be deemed proper to be done
under the specified limitations. But, if at any time,
it were thought necessary to do what these restric-
tions said the Conference should not do, then the
matter must be referred backHto the eldership as a
body, and they should determine whether or not the
thing should be done ; that is, plainly, they dele-
gated a part of their work to this Conference, and a
part they retained ; and to this day; they (the body
of elders) can do what the General Conference can
not do. They, if they so elect, can go beyond any
or all the restrictions they put upon the Conference.
They have allowed the General Conference full pow-
ers to make rules and regulations for the Church ;
that is, to change the constitution or the conditions
on which the Church was organized, at any regular
meeting, except in the particulars noted in the six
restrictive rules ; and changes have accordingly been
made by every succeeding Conference. So the case
stands about thus :

THE EPISCOPACY. 217

The delegated Conference became the agents or
trustees of rights invested in the elders. The Gen*.
eral Conference has no power except what was de-
rived from this source ; and what was granted may
be, on occasion, recalled, as the indefeasible right
inheres in the original grantors.

But with all these facts before them, there is a
marked difference of opinion as to what really is the
Constitution of the Church. Nor ctoes this differ-
ence exist only as between the Methodists in the
North and those in the South ; but neither side fully
agree among themselves.

For example : here before the writer are the views
of two representative men of the Methodist Episco-
pal Church, South. The first contends the Consti-
tution is found in the Six Eestrictive Rules, which, as
he says, consist — including the proviso — of twelve
articles, and proceeds to enumerate them.1 Then
right by the side of this is another who says :

" We reject, and always have, as absurd and utterly untena-
ble the position that the ' restrictive articles ' (rules) are the
Constitution of the Church. The proposition appended to the
articles is sufficient without anything else to overthrow the pre-
tension.

"We have a Constitution, however, as certainly as the
United States have, consisting mainly, as does the

British Constitution, of declaratory acts, statutes, rules and
regulations^ together with construction, precedent and usage,
as meaus of compact, union and action, and thus forming a
body of law, which is in fact our only Constitution. In a word,

*Dr. Wm. A. Smith. Sermon on the Character of Bishop
Soule. I^age 15.

218 THE EPISCOPACY.

our only Constitution Is oar book of statutes, rules and regula-
tions—The Discipline of the Church." a

Here is a wide difference between these two good
and great men. If Dr Smith and those who agree
with him be right, then the Church had no Constitu-
tion during the first twenty-four years of its organ-
ized existence ; and how it came to be organized and
continued as an organization for a quarter of a cen-
tury without an organic law or constitution, is. a
matter that might well puzzle the wisest of men.
The views of Dr Bascom must be regarded as far
more consistent and satisfactory

If, then, the Discipline of the Church be the
Constitution of the Church, the way is at once open
for a clear understanding of the nature and powers
of its episcopacy For here, again, there is great
difference in opinion ; and this difference is not only
as between the two branches of Episcopal Method-
ism, as at present existing in this country, but also
as between individuals as connected with these
branches respectively.

Perhaps the most exact, and, therefore, the most
satisfactory presentation of the points of difference,
as between the two churches, North and South, may
be made from the protest of the minority of the
General Conference of 1844, in the case of Bishop
Andrew ; and the reply to that protest, which was
drawn up by Drs. Durbin, Peck and Elliott, ap-
pointed by the majority of the Conference for that

*Dr. Bascom. Methodism and Slavery. Page 67.

THE EPISCOPACY. 219

purpose ; and which reply was accepted by that
majority and spread upon the records of the Con-
ference.

The protest was signed by sixty names : fifty-one
of that number represented delegates from the South,
and fifty-four of the sixty were subsequently con-
nected with the M. E. Church, South.

The protest and reply may therefore be regarded
as fair exponents of the views of the parties respec-
tively ; and the points of difference may be briefly
set forth as follows :

The protest affirms that —

"As the Methodist Episcopal Church is now organized, and
according to its organization since 1784, the episcopacy is a
co-ordinate branch — the executive department of the govern-
ment. A bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church is not a
mere creature — is in no prominent sense an officer of the Gen-
eral Conference.

'"The bishops are beyond doubt an integral constituent part
of the General Conference, made such bylaw and the Constitu-
tion, and because elected by the General Conference, it does not
follow that they are subject to the will of that body, except in
conformity with legal right and the provisions of law in the
premises.

"As executive officers as well as pastoral overseers, the bishops
belong to the Church as such, and not to the General Confer-
ence, as one of its counsels or organs of action merely.

" Because bishops are in part constituted by the General Con-
ference, the power of removal does not follow. Episcopacy
even in the Methodist Church is not a mere appointment to
labor. It is an official consecrated station under the protection
of law, and can only be dangerous as the law is bad, or the
Church corrupt."

These extracts, taken from different parts, and
from different connections of the "Protest," are

220 THE EPISCOPACY.

sufficient to afford the reader a correct and clear
idea of the views entertained by the signers, as
to the nature of the Episcopacy in the Methodist
Church.

To these positions, taken separately or collec-
tively, the "Reply" excepts, and either directly or
indirectly maintains their opposites. Hence what
th6 authors of the reply, and the majority of the
General. Conference of 1844, understood to be the
nature and powers of the Episcopacy, may be easily
learned by a careful study of the points quoted, and
as carefully considering their opposites.

In the debate which preceded the action that gave
rise to the protest, some of the speakers went fur-
ther than does the protest, and on the other side
much farther than does the reply c But these were
the utterances of individuals under the warmth and
ardor of debate, and should not therefore be re-
garded as the opinions of other than the speakers
themselves. With the protest and reply, however,
it is different These were evidently drawn up with
great care and deliberateness, and, as already re-
marked, may justly be regarded as fair exponents of
the views of the parties respectively

Here, then, are the real points of difference be-
tween the two branches of Episcopal Methodism in
this country

But while this is true, as between these two bodies,
it is also true there is not entire unanimity betweeu
the individuals in either body In proof: note the

THE EPISCOPACY. 221

fact that some of the members of the General Con-
ference of 1844, who were then in the North, and
remained in the North, signed the protest referred
to. And then note the discussions carried on through
the periodicals of their Church from time to time
until very recently

In 1874 the Methodist Book Concern at New York
published a history of the Discipline, prepared by
Dr. Sherman, in the Introduction to which views are
expressed in regard to the powers of the General
Conference, and, by consequence, of the Episcopacy
also, that were violently attacked and opposed
through the Church periodicals, by different writers.

These are conclusive as to the North. But how
about the South — is there entire unanimity here?
Let us see. Here, again, two representative men
shall be heard :

In the work from which a quotation has already
been made, Dr. Bascom says repeatedly the Episco-
pacy is the «* executive power" in the government
of the Church, while Dr Smith says the "Bishops
are the executive and judicial branches of the govern-
ment in combination." That the Episcopacy is the
executive department of the Church is an idea com-
monly received. How far this is a correct view may
be Seen hereafter ; but that the Episcopacy is both
the executive and judicial departments in combina-
tion has been maintained by only a few

The sum of the matter is, there are some in the
North who entertain what may be called the South-

222 THE EPISCOPACY.

ern view — that of the protest ; and there are those
in the South who incline to the Northern idea — that
of the reply c

Now let us see if we can ascertain precisely what
are the facts, and what the relation of facts one to
another, and of the whole to the case under consid-
eration, and from these draw the legitimate conclu-
sions :

And, first, it can scarcely be doubted but that the
Constitution of the Church is to be found in the
Discipline as framed in 1784.

This Constitution provided for its own amend-
ment, and accordingly has been amended at every
General Conference from that time to the present.

By the provisions of this Constitution superin-
tendents (bishops) became a co-ordinate branch in
the government, or rather the administration of the
government, of the Church ; and precisely the same
was true of «* elders, deacons and helpers." These
are all named in the declarative act, " We will
form ourselves into an Episcopal Church, under the
direction" — not of superintendents alone, not of
elders, or deacons, or helpers (unorclained preachers)
alone, but "superintendents, elders, deacons and
helpers." Thus it was at the beginning; thus it is
now. Every elder, deacon or helper (unordaihed
preacher), who may be placed in charge of a circuit,
or of a single church, becomes a part and parcel of
the executive branch, therefore a co-ordinate branch
of the government. Can this be denied? If not,

THE EPISCOPACY. 223

then why so much said about the Superintenclency
or Episcopacy being a co-ordinate branch, and no
mention made of the others? The truth is, that,
taken in its full sense, the executive powers of the
Church are, by the terms of the Constitution itself,
divided among all the various classes of church
officers, and the duties of each class are plainly and
clearly set forth in the Constitution — Discipline.
There we learn what are the rights, privileges,
powers and duties of bishops. We learn the same
in regard to elders, deacons, preachers in charge,
trustees and stewards, or deacons of the tables.
All have their place and their appropriate work
clearly and definitely prescribed. All are executive
officers ; all engaged within their respective limits in
executing or carrying out the rules of the Church.
Each class constitutes an integer of the whole, and
each is important to all the others. The same con-
stitution that recognizes and prescribes the duties of
one, recognizes and prescribes the duties of the
others. And all derive their authority from the
same source — the body of the eldership, to which
body God has committed the care of the Church.

It may be proper to remark in this connection,
that if there has ever been any change in the decla-
rative act of 1784, it was made by the Church, South,
in 1866, when the lay element was introduced into
the Annual and General Conferences, and the laity
thus introduced became a factor in the directive
power of the Church, thus, under prescribed limita-

224 THE EPISC OP A C Y.

U0118, adding to the number of those under whose
direction the affairs of the Church should be carried
on, without at all abridging the rights or lessening
the powers of the original factors.

It has been pleaded, as a peculiarity of the Epis-
copacy of the Methodist Episcopal Church, that the
Conference of 1784 did not create it, but rather it
gave vitality and power to the Conference. This is
not altogether correct, and is calculated to mislead.
True, the Conference did not create the Episcopacy,
no more did it create the eldership or the deaconate,
but by their unanimous acceptance, at the suggestion
of another, of 'an Episcopal form of government,
including these particulars, they did what was fully
and every way equivalent to an organization of such
form by themselves alone. They freely accepted it
and incorporated it in their organic law, and by doing
all they could do made it their own. So the plea
has no force at all as to the power of the Episcopacy,
or as to its relation to the Church. Thev could have
modified or rejected it then, or at any General Con-
ference previous to 1812, and it could have been
modified or done away with during any quadrennium
since that time. It was accepted at first because it
pleased the parties concerned, and, for the same
reason, it has been retained.

A few words now as to the assumption that in the
Episcopacy is lodged " both the judicial and execu-
tive power of the government of the Church."

This is not only the position assumed by the

THE EPISCOPACY. 225

writer previously quoted, but of some others as well,
and its out-croppings may be seen in the direct or
indirect remarks and allusions often made by some
of the prominent men of the Church through the
church-papers, or in official rulings. As they seem
to understand and maintain it, the assumption is
unfounded, erroneous and dangerous. As the exec-
utive, so the judicial functions of the government
are vested in different classes of persons. Ques-
tions of law arising in the trial of a member of the
Church must be decided by the preacher in charge,
subject to an appeal to the Quarterly Conference.
At the Quarterly Conference, the presiding elder
must reverse or affirm that decision, subject to an
appeal to the President of the next Annual Confer-
ence. The President of the next Annual Confer-
ence must affirm or reverse the decision, subject to
an appeal to the College of Bishops, whose decision,
the law says, shall in such cases be final. But right
here we meet an open question. Is a decision of
the College of Bishops to be regarded as a finality
for all time and all conditions, or as a finality only
until the meeting- of the next General Conference?
The law, as it now is, does not say ; but precedent,
usage and harmonious construction of law, all say,
until the General Conference next ensuing, to which
body all the bishops are " amenable for their con-
duct."

So we see the bishops, like the presiding elders, or
like those in charge of circuits, are judicial officers

226 THE EPISCOPACY.

within the limits prescribed by the Discipline or
Constitution. All have their executive and judicial
functions definitely and clearly pointed out. One
may not French upon another, and yet all are amena-
ble to select bodies of their peers. So that however
numerous or divergent the streams of executive and
judicial power may be, they all flow from the same
source, and all ultimately return to the source
whence they came. A more equitable, beneficent
or efficient form of church government perhaps has
never been devised. Just let every one know his
place and keep in it, and friction and iuharmony are
next to impossible.

This is a point that needs always to be guarded
with sedulous care. Each and every church officer
must be kept within his own bounds, attending to
his own work, never overstepping his prescribed
limits nor interfering with the work of another.

I&hnytix JifteentJu

THE EPISCOPACY CONTINUED.

AS will thus be seen, from what has gone be-
fore, the episcopal office, in the Methodist
Church, is a strictly limited general superintendency.
It is not, in right or law, and was never designed to
be, the powerful head of a graduated hierarchy ;
and, should any thing occur in the sentiments or
bearing of an incumbent of this office that wears
that aspect, it must be attributed to a feeling or
temper which really disqualifies him for the place.
The Christian, as the Methodist ideal of this officer
is, that he should be the servant of all, and certainly
his meekness of temper and gentleness of manners
should respond to this conception. Should there
chance an exception to this rule, so much the worse
for the church and the man ; since each episcopal
aggression must be firmly withstood and effectually
overcome, upon peril of the purity, and even of the
life, of the itinerancy- Any one at all familiar with
the history of the general church can not fail to
remember, by what subtle and almost insensible

228 THE E PIS COP A C Y.

approaches the incumbents of what was originally a
mere presiding eldership passed to the patriarchal
and papal thrones; and this history must not be
permitted to repeat itself, in the Methodist or any
other Protestant denomination. The episcopacy is
not, and by Heaven s blessing, never .will become,
" a co-ordinate branch of the government " of the
church, in any other sense than that already pointed
out, and whoever claims for it more than this is
either greatly mistaken in his views or the enemy of
the peace and perpetuity of Methodism.

It is true, that by the terms of our ecclesiastical
law, the bishop is authorized to "fix the appoint-
ments of the preachers in the several conferences "
over which he is himself appointed to preside ; but,
as has been seen, this power is often more nominal
than real, inasmuch as he knows neither the men
nor the work, and must rely, for all real acquaint-
ance with both, upon the presiding elders. He
may, also, upon the same "information," exercise
the same functions " in the intervals of the confer-
ences" within the limits of his episcopal district.

Here, as in a former case, we meet an open ques-
tion. This confining the work of a Bishop to his
Episcopal Districts is a recent amendment of the
Constitution or Discipline, Was it intended that
a Bishop should exercise the functions of his office
nowhere else or that he should be personally and
officially responsible for the work on that particu-
lar district? This much we can readily understand

THE EPISCOPACY. 229

and willingly accept as a wise and safe measure.
But if it were intended that he should not exer-
cise the functions of his office elsewhere the case
is neither so clear nor so satisfactory. And on
the principle that whatever is not expressed in the
grant is withheld, the language in the case needs
to be more explicit. But however it may be in
regard to this particular, the great prerogative of
the Bishop and his most exalted power is, in the
language of the law, "to choose the presiding
elders, fix their stations, and change them when
he judges it necessary," within the constitutional
four-years' limit. Here is space and opportunity
for the exercise of the highest qualities of the ruler
and military chief in one. A Methodist bishop
should have enough of the Napoleonic in his men-
tal type to be able to discover, in every confer-
ence over which he presides, a sufficient number of
the cleverest spirits to man the presiding elders'
districts. If he can not do this, he is out of place,
and might serve the church by a prompt resignation
of his episcopal office. An error here is a crime ;
for this, as has already been stated, is the key of
the whole Methodist position and the source of its
greatest power or weakness. An incompetent, in-
dolent, ambitious, selfish or malignant man in this
place could work an amount of mischief to Method-
ism, in the short space of a single term of his office,
which no time nor change may ever be able to repair.
It is the bishop's all-eminent duty to see to it that

230 THE EPISCOPACY.

no such man be chosen as presiding elder. And
for this, he has sufficient opportunity, if he be him*
self — what his position demands. With the pre-
siding elders already in place, he has the closest and
most intimate association during several consecutive
days and nights, even if he comes to their conference
a total stranger. He sees and hears them all day
long upon the conference floor, and when the day's
session is over, takes them with him to his private
council, where he detains them, not unfrequently, to

"The wee sma' hours ayont the twal."

Added to this, he has comparative exhibits from
all their fields of labor, present and past. He may
judge them wisely by their manner, their temper
under trying ordeals, their present ability and their
past efficiency Surely, with them he need not go
wrong. Then, if hew men are needed for this work,
or better ones appear in the body of the conference
than those already in charge of it, it is for him to
discern them, sound them, try them, prove and ap-
prove them. And the remark is sufficiently important
to merit pardon for its repetition, that a mistake at
this point is simply inexcusable, because its ill effects
can rarely or never be repaired. Whole societies
may be permanently alienated from the Methodist
Communion by a single error of this description,
and some of its best factors of usefulness cancelled
forever or converted into opposing agencies of emi-
nently injurious efficiency This is a class of mis-

THE EPISCOPACY. 231

takes which neither the Methodist Church nor any
other can well afford.

Enoch M. Marvin was elected one of the bishops
of the M. E. Church, South, by the General Con-
ference held at New Orleans, in 1866. The circum-
stances, as related by himself, are so singular as to
be worthy of particular mention. About the close
of the war, being then in the Southwest, he was
placed in charge of the Church at Marshall, Texas,
where, having been joined by his family, he remained
until the meeting; of the General Conference. Not
being a delegate to that body, it had been his pur-
pose to attend its session as a visitor ; but the receipt
of a letter, from the presiding elder of the New
Orleans District, inviting him to be present and
intimating, at the same time, that some of his friends
were going to vote for him for bishop, forbade to
him that coveted indulgence. He feared that his
presence, under the circumstances, would be re-
garded as an effort to promote his own election ; and
he resolved, therefore, to stay away from New Or-
leans until such time as, by his computation, the
election should be passed. Within a few days of
the prospective close of the conference (having no
doubt, though he had heard nothing, that the elec-
tion was long since settled), he left his home in
Marshall in order to be present at its concluding
labors. On his way thither, while descending the
Red River on a steamboat, he was one day sitting
quite alone, and thinking of nothing in especial

2W THE EPISCOPACY,

which he could remember, when suddenly, and as
distinctly as if a human voice had spoken to him
conveying the tidings, it was "borne in upon him"
that he was elected to the episcopal office. He
tried, quite in vain, to shake off the impression ;
but it was at once vivid and overpowering, and so
remained until unknowing anything, he reaehed the
city of New Orleans. There he learned that he was
indeed one of the bishops elect, and that the elec-
tion had occurred on the same day and, as nearly as
he could ascertain by a careful comparison of time,
at the precise moment, of the corresponding im-
pression to this effect which had so strangely and
violently taken possession of his mind some days
before and many miles away To the friend from
whom this information is derived, Bishop Marvin
did not attempt any explanation of the circumstance
which he thus narrated. He simply stated the fact
as it is here given, and left it so. There is little
doubt, however, that he regarded it as a Divine
intimation of his call to the sacred work of the
episcopacy ; so that he could and did answer, as
truly as earnestly, to the question in the ordination
service, "Are you persuaded that you are truly
called to this ministration, according to the will of
our Lord Jesus Christ? I am so persuaded." He
was elected on the first ballot, bv seventv-three out
of one hundred and forty-four votes.

His first episcopal district comprised the Indian
Mission, Texas, East Texas, Northwest Texas and

THE EPISCOPACY. 233

West Texas conferences. To all these he ren-
dered good and acceptable service ; but, for the
Indian Mission conference, he did a special work
which bound him closely to the hearts of its mem-
bers and entitled him to the gratitude of the whole
connection. This service can not be better or more
briefly rendered than in the words of one of his
episcopal colleagues :

"The Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Creek Indians
had been impoverished more than any other people. Both
armies had preyed on them, and their attitude had not made
the Federal Government propitious. The people were near
starvation; and as for our Indian preachers — the case seemed
hopeless. Some suggested disbanding. The missionary board,
burdened with debt, had not been able to make them any ap-
propriation. He met the emergency. The Conference was
held, and the preachers appointed to their circuits. He then
drew on himself for $5,000, in quarterly instalments, to sup-
port them — and when his routine of official work was done, he
spent the winter traveling through the Church at large, plead-
ing the cause of the Indians, and putting money into the empty
treasury to meet his drafts. He saved our Indian Mission
Conference — and this act signalized his first year in the episco-
pacy."

His episcopal district for 1867 comprised the St.
Louis, Missouri, Arkansas, Little Kock and Indian
Mission Conferences.. For the first time, now, his
home-conferences, the Missouri and St. Louis, were
included in his work. The former was held at Ma-
con City, September 4th, and the latter at Kansas
City, September 18th. The occasions were of thril-
ling interest. At both these places he met, himself
in possession of the highest ecclesiastical dignity in
the gift of the Church, the men and women who had

284 THE EPISCOPACY.

known him as a poor and obscure boy, a modest and
humble youth and a strong and earnest man. None
of them had ever expected him to rise so high. In
their way they had loved and appreciated him, but
not as his peers in the General Conference had done.
They could never have looked for this, and when
they heard it, received the intelligence with quite as
much surprise as delight. Now he was here seated,
as of right, in the chair of the Conference, grave,
dignified, calm, presiding over all. They had
doubted a little (it was but natural that they should)
both his dignity and ability, and some had feared
that he might be spoiled by pride of place ; but he
failed them in nothing — neither in the. requisites for
his high office nor in the tender fellowship which had
made him so dear to them in the former days.
Loudly they declared, when the Conferences ad-
journed, that the work was well done In this there
was no exaggeration, though there might have been
much enthusiasm. At DesArc, he gave equal sat-
isfaction to the Little Hock Conference, and at Fort
Gibson, they received him as the savior of the Con-
ference which, by the word of one already quoted
and not given to extravagant eulogy, he certainly
was. So passed, almost like a triumph, his first two
years of episcopal life and labor

From the bishop's annual meeting of 1808 he was
sent to the Pacific Coast, where he remained for
seventeen months, holding in that time two sessions
of both the Columbia and Pacific conferences. He

THE EPISCOPACY. 235

went out by the Isthmus and returned by the Union
Pacific Bail way. His letters, written during this
time, show that his eyes and heart were open to all
the influences of the sea and of the land. There,
as everywhere, he labored, traveled and preached
almost incessantly His whole heart was evidently
in the work. He was bent on doing as much for
those far-away conferences as could be accomplished
within the time allowed him to remain with them.
In this he did not fail. His labor was not in vain.
They feel his impulse to-day ; and no tenderer or
more passionate mourners stood in all that band of
bereaved Conferences that so lately wept his un-
timely loss, than were the isolated sisters of the
Western Coast. His letters from that country
should be collected and published in a more durable
form. They are too valuable to share in the blos-
som-like frailty of newspaper life.

Be turned from California, in 1870, he held the
Trinity, East Texas, Texas, Northwest Texas and
West Texas conferences. Still his work was in no
sense perfunctory He retained the spirit of his
earlier episcopal administration, supported by a
larger experience of affairs. He did not merely
regulate — he devised. He was constantly on the
outlook for new openings and happier opportunities.
He sought not merely the improvement, but also the
enlargement of the work. In the intervals of the
conferences, he still traveled and preached as dili-
gently as ever. He allowed himself hardly any

236 THE EPISCOPACY.

time for repose. Even where .space and time for
this much needed purpose had been designated, he
yielded a ready assent to every local call for his
counsel and assistance ; and these local calls were
almost incessant. He still continued his correspon-
dence with church papers, and his letters from Texas
are among the best which he has ever written.

He returned, in 1871, to the same episcopal dis-
trict, enlarged by the addition of the Western con-
ference, which was held at Council Grove, Kansas,
on the 30th of August. The frequency of his return
to the same district evinces the deep and abiding in-
terest which he felt in the work. He was unwilling
to leave anything unfinished. Not until he had done
his utmost to realize his own ideal, was he willing to
entrust the work to other hands. In this matter he
displayed unusual mental tenacity On the whole,
his administration of the Texas conferences was
more than satisfactory to both preachers and people.

In 1872 his episcopal district included the North
Georgia, South Georgia, Louisville and Illinois con-
ferences. This was the first official visit of the
Western Bishop to the refined and cultivated people
of the middle and Southeastern conferences ; and
the impression left by his work there was quite as
favorable to himself as in the rougher regions of the
West He had wonderful adaptability in this matter,
and took as kindly to excellence, polished and adorned
by genuine culture, as if he had never been accus-
tomed to anything else in his life.

THE EPISCOPACY. 237

In 1873 he was assigned to the Illinois, Western
Virginia, Alabama, North Alabama, and Florida
Conferences. Having had a taste of his quality,
the Eastern conferences wanted more. It would
hardly be an exaggeration to say that, in that work
he was remarkably acceptable. Not only were no
murmurs on account of his administration ever
heard, but the expressions of gratification and de-
light were warm and cordial almost to extravagance.
He took the people of that country with all the
force of surprise. He was not learned or polished ;
but then, he did not pretend to be either, and they
accepted his sincerity, earnestness, and diligence yas
a more than satisfactory substitute for accomplish-
ments of which they had grown weary.

In 1874 he held the Louisiana, Virginia, North

Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee conferences.

Still he was acceptable, effective, and powerful. In

the chair of the conference, in the pulpit, in the

stationing-room, in the domestic circle, it might be

said with much truth :

"None knew him but to love him,
None named him but to praise."

In 1875 his district included the Baltimore, Ala-
bama, North Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, West-
ern, and Denver conferences. These embraced a
wide scope and heavy labor, but their onerous duties
were met as cheerfully and pleasantly as they were
performed effectually Nowhere was seen any
abatement of either vigor or devotion.

288 THE EPI8C0PACY.

In 1876 he received the great appointment of his
life. The board of missions determined that it was
necessary that one of the bishops should visit our
China Mission, and they presented this resolve to
the bishop's conference, leaving to the latter the
designation of the man. They unanimously chose
for this work, Bishop Marvin. Both these actions
were taken in obedience to the instructions of the
preceding General Conference, There was also as-
signed to the Bishop, the holding of the Denver
Conference, August 2nd, at Colorado Springs ; the
Columbia, September 13th, at Leonadis, Oregon ; the
Pacific, October 11th, at San Francisco, and the
Los Angeles, October 25th, at San Bernardino.
All these, it was supposed, he could meet en route
to his point of departure. All this he did, as well
and faithfully as usual, and on Wednesday, Novem-
ber 1st, went on board the Alaska, in San Francisco
harbor, and departed for his voyage around the
world. Of this, more particular notice will be
taken in another chapter

His tour of conferences for 1877 was prepared in
anticipation of his return. They found him ready
for the work, and efficient as ever in his place ; but
the crowding too nearly together of conference ses-
sions, to which he amiably yielded for the accom-
modation of others, greatly overtaxed his strength.
Of the six conferences assigned to him — the West-
ern, St. Louis, Missouri, Indian Mission, Southwest
Missouri, and Mississippi — he attended all except

THE EPISCOPACY. 239

the last, and was only prevented from attending that
by the intervention of his Master's call. Thus, rich
in labors though unripe in years, he passed from the
able and faithful discharge of his episcopal duties to
render his account to the Great Master of all.

$fo»lrtetf £ixt«tttfe.

FOREIGN MISSION WORK.

MANY voices in this day among the laity, and
a few even among the ministry, question the
utility or expediency of foreign missions. It is
urged that they do no good, and that there is no oc-
casion for them ; that nothing respectable, even in
the way of formal results, is accomplished by them ;
that the few who follow the standard of a foreign
missionary are the refuse of any population, and are
wholly swayed to their seeming conversion by mo-
tives purely mercenary ; that intelligence and honesty
are never combined in any convert ; that he is a knave
seeking his own interested ends, a desperado who
has lost caste among his own people, and therefore
embraces Christianity in a spirit of reckless adven-
ture, or an idiot who knows not how to distinguish
between right and wrong ; that if the missionaries
did not feed, clothe and pay their converts, they
would no longer have any converts ; that so long as
these people have any sense of right or moral obli-
gation it must be expressed by a natural or irre-

FOBEIQK MISSION WOBK. 241

pressible law, in fidelity to the religion in which they
were born and reared ; that they can not, therefore,
become Christian converts save by a double treason
to their friends and their faith, which must wreck the
last remains of moral character, should they happen
to possess any when they fall into the hands of the
missionary ; and that, in a word, the truest, and in-
deed the only adequate description of foreign mis-
sions is to be found in the words of Christ, addressed
to the missionaries of his time : "Ye compass sea
and land to make one proselyte ; and when he is
made, ye make him two-fold more the child of hell
than yourselves." And to this strong statement
they add their reasonings in this wise :

"Have not heathen nations the same God and
Heavenly Father as ourselves ? and is there any rea-
son to suppose that he loves them less than us, or
cares for them less tenderly? If, then, he had seen
that the Christian religion was good for them, would
he not have given it to them as well as to us ? Was
he unable, or unwilling, to do this? Since he did
not do it, he must have been the one or the other.
Think how many millions of them have lived and
died already without the knowledge of Christianity,
to whom He could have imparted it as easily as to
us, if such knowledge had been essential to their sal-
vation, or if he had wished them to possess it. Since
their God is the same as ours, what matter if his
revelation to them be somewhat different from his
revelation to us? Does he not know, better than

242 FOREIGN MISSION WORK.

we, what his children need? If they are satisfied
with the religion of Gautama Buddha and the moral
science of Confucius, is it not antecedently probable
that these are better for them than our forms of sec-
tarian Christianity? Is it not, then, an act of pre-
sumption little less than blasphemous, to assume that
we know, better than the All-Wise, what these peo-
ple need and what will do them good ? We can not
suppose that their salvation depends upon a knowl-
edge of Christianity, without a manifest impeach-
ment of the Divine goodness ; since, if this were true,
millions have been lost not by their own fault but
through God's cruel neglect to provide them with
the only means of salvation. If, then, they do not
need Christianity in order to be saved, is it so very
certain that they need it at all ?

" Besides, is it not reasonably certain that, so far,
Christianity has done not good but harm to those
nations among which its seeds have been scattered?
What has been the harvest of this sowing? Is it not
seen in mutual distrust, and social and even civil
dissensions ? Did not that learned missionary from
China, Wong Chin Foo (who is the first to recipro-
cate our benevolent offices by trying to convert Chris-
tians to the religion of paganism), tell us, only the
other day, that the introduction of Christianity, by
the missionaries, had worked immense harm to the
Celestial Empire? that, until the Christian mission-
aries came, their four hundred and fifty millions of
people had lived in peace and happiness for so many

FOBEIQN MISSION WOBK. 243

ages that the very memory of civil strife had passed
away? and that the Chinese war of years ago, which
desolated provinces and cost the lives of thirty mil-
lions of people, was occasioned by a revolt headed
by a Christian convert ? If it is their temporal wel-
fare which we seek, by our missionary enterprises,
how long will it take us to compensate them for this
one item of loss and damage ?

"Still more, foreign missions involve, necessarily
and on our own part, an immense waste of means
and of life. How much time, study and labor are
required to qualify even one man for this work !
How much money must be expended for his living,
his education, his outfit, his passage abroad and his
continued sustentation in that distant field ! And
then, to what unusual, and often fatal, perils is he
exposed in his passage to a heathen country and resi-
dence there ! Haw many valuable lives have thus
been sacrificed to a mere chimera of the Christian
brain ! And all this at the same time that heathens
in abundance can be found within a few miles' radius
of every Christian Church in our own country ! In
view, then, of these simple and potent certainties,
we can not do less than pronounce foreign missions
the wildest Quixotism of Christian insanity, and
every missionary a new hero of La Mancha, whose
serious absurdities may well provoke the laugh of the
common sense world."

Such sentiments as the above have grown too com-
mon, and it is high time that they should be fairly

244 FOREIGN MISSION WOBK.

and distinctly met. The church can not any longer
safely ignore them, nor effectively denounce them.
The thoughtful men and women who constitute the
best of her membership can not be moved by mere
denunciation, unless it be in the direction of a skep-
ticism still more profound. They must have some-
thing more and better than "mere sound and fury,
signifying nothing," or they will take a permanent
and powerful place in the ranks of the opponents of
foreign missions. If these rest on no good ground,
it is best to admit the fact, just because it is a fact;
while, on the other hand, if any sufficient defense
for them remains, the exigencies of the present mis-
sionary crisis require it to be set forth. When,
within the altar-rails of the most prominent Protes-
tant Episcopal Church in a great city, and in pres-
ence of the assembled and silent clergy, the conduct
of an important missionary meeting is committed
to an able and influential layman, who, from that
place and that presence proceeds, unreproved and
undisputed, to denounce and decry all foreign mis-
sions, it is plain that the time has come when such
arguments must bo adequately answered, or they will
soon find such a response in the popular convictions
of other communions as will make foreign missions
a thing of the past. *

To any one admitting the authenticity and author-
ity of the New Testament Scriptures, it might seem

i Address of Hon. Silas Bent in St. George's Church, St.
Louis, Mo.

FOBEIGN MISSION WOBK. 245

that a mere reference to the terms of the great com-
mission, " Go ye into all the world and preach the
gospel to every creature," and to the example of
Christ and his apostles, were a sufficient warrant for
foreign missions, " even unto the end of the world ;"
to which limit the commission, by the simple force
of the terms employed, does plainly extend. A
candid man would just like to know if the good peo-
ple who oppose foreign missions are aware of the
logical force of their position. Are they ready,
knowing what they do, to renounce the New Testa-
ment or to disregard the plain words of Christ?
For to this issue must opposition to foreign missions
justly come. If He did expressly enjoin his apos-
tles to " Go and disciple all nations," and by extend-
ing their commission "to the end of the world" did
as expressly render this injunction perpetually bind-
ing on his church, then nothing can be surer than
that, to oppose foreign missions is directly to diso-
bey Christ. Nay more — to argue against them — to
question their utility or beneficence, is to impugn
the wisdom and goodness of him who ordained them.
Now, it is hardly to be supposed, that the authors of
the opposition are ready for such an issue; and, if
they are not, this caveat may induce them to pause
and review the steps by which they reached a con-
clusion so adverse to their Christian integrity.

And what, after all, is the real value of those
specious arguments by which they have been de-
luded? The results forsooth, of foreign missions

246 FOJtEIQN MISSION WORK.

are inconsiderable — the missionaries labor long for a
few converts ! Suppose this statement were uni-
formly true (which it is not), would it reflect at all
upon the worthiness of this Christian enterprise? Is
that which is difficult, and which yields but small
apparent returns, therefore and perforce unworthy
of our continued pursuit? What, then, would have
become of some of the noblest enterprises which
have ever blessed humanity ? They must have been
abandoned simply because their earlier results were
unpromising. The tirst regular foreign Christian
missionary was Jesus Christ, and he came from
heaven to earth at infinite pains and expense. There
was no mean economy in that enterprise ; and no
doubt there were, even in that day, both men and
devils who thought it absurdly romantic. Nor did
it promise well in the outset. The result of thirty-
three years of painful endeavor, in this field, was a
small band of despised men, one of whom was an
avaricious traitor and another a boasting coward,
who "all forsook him and fled" when he was ar-
rested. Then, after insult and torture, he was put
to a shameful and agonizing death ; and it seemed
that a grand life had come to an ignominous failure.
But how do the millions of the redeemed characterize
this apparent failure to-day ! Thus the first argu-
ment against foreign missions shames and abandons
Christ*

But if God had wished heathen nations to have a
knowledge of Christianity, he would have given it

FOBEIGN MISSION WOBK. 247

to them ! It is surprising that any one can be found
thoughtless enough to repeat an argument of this
quality- It would seem to call for as many Christs
as there are nations on the globe. On this principle,
Christianity is out of place among Western nations ;
since it was born in the East, and brought hither by
missionaries. Those missionaries, then, were guilty
of a blasphemously presumptuous interference with
the Divine will ; since, had he desired us to have
Christianity in the West, he would have given it to
us. Then, too, all our wondrous Western civiliza-
tion, of which Christianity, even by the admissions
of infidelity, has been the main factor, is a thing:
stolen out of the hands of an unfriendly Providence
and held against the will of the Almighty ! It is
singular that those who oppose foreign missions can
not see that, in so doing, they disown at once their
own civilization and religion.

But Christianity injures the nations among whom
it is introduced ! This statement is contradicted,
first, by all the facts of Christian missionary history.
There is no authentic record of such harmful effects
of the Christian religion, and the one quoted from
Wong Chin Foo, is merely a clumsy attempt at a
witticism. That a great rebellion, embracing sixty
millions of people, should include one Christian con-
vert, is certainly not a matter of surprise to any one ;
and the logic which holds that one is responsible for
the conduct of all the others is certainly of Chinese
quality. Even if he were a leader, as alleged, the

24S FOREIGN MISSION WORK.

absurdity is still monstrous. Our government has
had a rebellion, and has put it down at the expense
of a million lives. Now, let it be supposed that one
of the Southern leaders was a believer in Con-
fucianism— would not the attempt to hold the Chi-
nese religion responsible for the secessipn movement
be deemed the very grotesque of absurdity? Yet
this is attempted gravely, and on a scale thirty times
greater, against Christianity ! In the second place,
the averment must be false, in the very nature of
things. How can the adoption of a religion whose
fundamental law is mutual l'ove and helpfulness do
harm to any? This is contrary to all reason and ex-
perience. And finally, we are ourselves both the
witnesses and the beneficiaries of Christian influ-
ences. If we compare our present condition with
the rude barbarism and savage and bloody supersti-
tion in which Christianity found the Western nations,
and from which she has redeemed them, we shall be
able to attach to such assertions their proper value.
But we have heathenism nearer home, and less
difficult and expensive to be reached ! This is true ;
but for them the Church is doing what can profitably
be done. £he furnishes them with all the light
which they are willing to receive, and it is impracti-
cable to give them more. Having done this, it is
her bounden duty to send the gospel to those distant
peoples who have never heard its sound. The great
Father of all has designed the gospel of Christ for
all peoples and all time, and designed to use man as

FOREIGN MliSSION WORK. 249

an agent of good to man, and one nation to be the
instrument of good to other nations. If an epidemic
raged in all the world, and we had prepared in our
own country hospitals and physicians for all who
would seek a cure, would it not then be* proper and
our duty to help other peoples who were destitute of
both ? Assuredly it would ; and so with the Christian
religion .

Home missions have a pleasant and specious look,
but they are not always what they seem — are not
always Christian missions in the full sense of that
word. They are often merely enterprises for church
extension. Their real and ultimate meaning is de-
nominational advancement. It is time that the
churches understood this, and along with it its neces-
sary corollary, that the proper and best field of
missionary enterprise is abroad ; in a word, that the
church which has either no foreign mission or a feeble
one, has either no missionary spirit or a faint one ;
and that, in consequence, she is either not a Christian
Church at all, or has very little of the spirit of
Christianity Of course those denominational enter-
prises which are designated as home missions are
worthy of denominational support so long as they
are conducted in a spirit of Christian brotherhood
and fair competition, and not in a temper of selfish
aggression. That they do sometimes degenerate into
the latter, our own connection has had many recent
and pointed proofs. A still worse harm, however,
will be done should the Church ever come to regard

260 FOREIGN MISSION WOBK.

them as fair competitors for her zeal and self-
sacrifice with the sacred cause of foreign mis-
sions.

There is, besides, a larger view of the missionary
question, which it may be well for the Church to
take. This view is admirably set forth in Professor
Max Midler's Lecture on Missions, delivered in the
nave of Westminster Abbey, December 3d, 1873.
His reasonings and proofs — and they are simply
conclusive — are to the effect that missions are the
condition, and their extent the measure, of the
vitality of every religion. He therein takes a com-
parative view of all the religions which have attained
stability and prominence in the history of the world.
The Semitic races, he says, have produced three —
the Jewish, the Christian and the Mohammedan ;
the Aryan, or Indo-European races, an equal
number — the Brahman, the Buddhist and the Parsee ;
the Chinese two — that of Confucius and Lao-tse.
Thus the whole world has produced in effect but
eight religions. As Judaism, Christianity and
Mohammedanism are linked together in the order of
antecedent and consequent, so are the faiths of the
Brahman, the Buddhist and the Parsee. Of these
six religions of the Aryan and Semitic world, the
last three are opposed to all missionary enterprise,
and the former three have had a missionary character
from the very beginning of their history. The Jews,
particularly in ancient times, little thought of spread-
ing their religion — it was to them the peculiar

FOBEIGN MISSION WOBK. 251

treasure which made them a peculiar people. Their
proselytes were men who came to them as aliens,
and, according to some of their sayings, were not to
be trusted until the twenty-fourth generation. The
Brahmans wished rather to keep the light to them-
selves than to shed it abroad. They repelled all
intruders, and even went so far as to punish those
who were accidentally near enough to hear the sound
of their prayers and to witness their sacrifices. Nor
does the Parsi wish for converts to his religion,
though he is proud of his faith as of his blood, and
believes in the final victorv of truth and light, which
he does little or nothing to bring about.

On the other hand, the religions of the Semitic
races all have faith in themselves, have life and vigor,
wish to convince and mean to conquer This distin-
tion lifts them high above the level of the other
religions of the world. At the end of the Great
Council of Buddhists, held at Pataliputra, 246 b. c,
missionaries were chosen and sent forth to preach
the new doctrine, not only in India, but far beyond
the frontiers of that vast country The missionaries
have been at work ever since, and have met, and are
still meeting with success. They have so nearly
converted the vast empire of China, that the latest
representative of that country, Wong Chin Foo,
when describing to a public audience in St. Louis
the faith of his people, said : " For religion we go
to Buddhism, and for moral science to Confucius ;"
while of Lao-tse he made no mention whatever. We

262 FOREIGN MISSION WORK.

have some accounts even of the manner in which
these Buddhist missionaries preach. When threat-
ened by infuriated crowds one of them said, calmly,
" Even if the gods were united with men they would
not frighten me away;" and when he had brought
the people to listen, ho dismissed them with these
words : * * Do not hereafter give way to pride and
anger ; care for the happiness of all living beings,
and abstain from violence. Extend your good will
to all mankind ; let there be peace among the
dwellers on earth." Surely here was an act of
heroism, worthy of a Christian martyr, and a bene-
diction which might have fallen from the lips of a
Christian apostle.

The Koran breathes a different spirit ; it does not
so much invite as compel the world to come in. Its
missionaries have carried their creed in one hand and
the sword in the other Its terms of salvation have
been, " Embrace the religion of our Prophet, or
die." Yet what wondrous success has followed the
preaching of that stern evangel.

As for Christianity, its very soul is missionary —
progressive, world-embracing. It began with a
mission, has been propngated solely by missionaries,
and must end with the extinction of the missionary
spirit. One passage from this admirable lecture, on
the spirit of truth, must bo introduced verbatim.
Its merits will plead its own apology :

"The spirit of truth is the life-spring of all re-
ligion, and where it exists it must manifest itself; it

F0BE1GN MISSION WOBK. 253

must plead, it must persuade, it must convince and
convert. Missionary work, however, in the usual
sense of the word, is only one manifestation of that
spirit ; for the same spirit which fills the heart of
the missionary with daring abroad gives courage also
to the preacher at home, bearing witness to the truth
that is within him. The religions that can boast of
missionaries who left the old home of their child-
hood, and parted with parents and friends never to
meet again in this life, willing to spend a life of toil
among strangers, ready, if need be, to lay down
their life as witnesses to the truth, as martyrs for
the glory of God — the same religions are rich also
in those honest and intrepid inquirers who, at the
bidding -of the same spirit of truth, were ready to
leave behind them the cherished creed of their
childhood, to separate from the friends they loved
best, to stand among men that shrug their shoulders
and ask, 'What Ls truth?' and to bear in silence a
martyrdom more galling often than death itself.
There are men who say, that if they held the whole
truth in their hand they would not open one finger.
Such men know little of the working of the spirit of
truth — of the true missionary spirit. As long as
there is doubt and darkness and anxiety in the soul
of an enquirer, reticence may be his natural atti-
tude. But when once doubt has yielded to certainty,
darkness to light, anxiety to joy, the rays of truth
will burst forth ; and to close our hand or shut our
lips would be as impossible as for the petals of a

254 FOREIGN MISSION WORK.

flower to shut themselves against the summons of
the sun of spring.

•' What is there in this short life that should seal
our lips? What should we wait for, if we are not
to speak here and now? There is missionary work
at home as much as abroad ; there are thousands
waiting to listen, if one now will speak the truth,
and nothing but the truth ; there are thousands
starving, because they cannot find that food which
is convenient for them.

*********
"If we would but confess, friend to friend ; if we
would be but honest, man to man, we should not
want confessors or confessionals.

*********
"There may be times when silence is gold, and
speech silver ; but there are also times when silence
is death, and speech is life — the very life of Pente-
cost

*********

"A missionary must know no fear ; his heart must
overflow with love — love of men, love of truth, love
of God ; and in this, the highest and truest sense of
the word, every Christian is, or ought to be, a
missionary.' '

The missionary religions arc alive : the anti-mis-
sionary religions are either dying or dead. The re-
ligion of Zoroaster, which once seemed likely to
become the religion of the civilized world, is pro-
fessed to-day by only one hundred thousand souls,

FOBEIGN MISSION WOBK. 255

and another century will probably witness its extinc-
tion. The Jews have about thirty times the number
of the Parsis, but they are not increasing and, though
pride of birth, lineage, and energy of character may
preserve them longer, it is certain that they can not
always hold their own against the advancing aggres-
sions of more active and earnest faiths. Though the
Brahmans number, nominally, one hundred and ten
millions, and possibly even more, yet there is as
little doubt that their religion is dying or dead. It
is the rudest and most savage of existing faiths, and
is preserved only, like wild beasts, by hiding in its
native jungles. It can not bear the light of civiliza-
tion. The very atmosphere of free thought is fatal
to it. In the sense of power, even among its own
ostensible followers, Brahmanism has been dead for
centuries. Ask any Hindoo, who can read and write
and think, if he believes in his native gods, and he
will laugh at the wildness of your supposition.

The three living religions, then, are the three mis-
sionary religions ; and it is between them that the
grand battle must be fought, which is to result in
giving one of them the empire of the world. De-
spite the prophecy of Cavour, it is not probable that
a "new religion" will ever be given to the world.

If Christianity were to fall before one of her now
existing competitors, the weak spot in her armor
and the cause of her death, will be found in her fail-
ure to cultivate the missionary spirit. This it is that
gave her life originally, that has preserved it hith-

266 FOREIGN MISSION WORK.

erto, and that must continue and proportion it to the
end. Buddhism still occupies the first place in the
religious census of men. It rules supreme in Cen-
tral, Northern, Eastern, and Southern Asia, and it
is gradually absorbing whatever there is left of abo-
riginal heathenism in that vast and populous area.
Mohammedanism claims and owns Arabia, Persia,
parts of India, Asia Minor, Turkey, and Egypt ; and
its greatest conquests, by missionary efforts, are
now being made among the heathen population of
Africa. Christianity reigns in Europe and America,
and nowhere else ; though its missionary outposts
are scattered throughout the world. Such are the
present attitude and relative strength of the com-
peting forces ; and the remark is as easy as it is
soundly true, that humanly the triple contest will
issue in favor of that one of the combating religions
which feels and displays most missionary zeal. No
doubt, from our stand-point, the advantage is greatly
on the side of Christianity She has a higher civili-
zation, better and more numerous facilities, and,
above all, she holds and wields a diviner truth. Still
the question is, and must continue to be, whether
she believes that truth with so much energy as at
once to transform her life and consecrate her powers
to the service of the missionary enterprise.

The concluding thought of this great Lecture is
too precious to be either omitted or marred by any-
thing inferior to its author's own beautiful and for-
cible expressions :

FOBEIGN MISSION WOBK. 257

44 There is one kind of faith that revels in words,
there is another that ean hardly find utterance : the
former is like riches that come to us by inheritance ;
the latter is like the daily bread, which each of us
has to win in the sweat of his brow We can not
expect the former from new converts ; we ought not
to expect it or to exact it, for fear that it might lead
to hyprocrisy or superstition. The mere believing
of miracles, the mere repeating of formulas, requires
no effort in converts brought up to believe in the
Puranas of the Brahmans or the Buddhist Gatakas.
They find it much easier to accept a legend than to
love God, to repeat a creed than to forgive their
enemies. In this respect they are exactly like our-
selves. Let missionaries remember that the Chris-
tian faith at home is no longer what it was, and that
it is impossible to have one creed to preach abroad,
another to preach at home. Much that was formerly
considered as essential is now neglected ; much that
was formerly neglected is now considered as essen-
tial. I think of the laity more than of the clergy ;
but what would the clergy be without the laity?
There are many of our best men, men of the greatest
power and influence in literature, science, art, poli-
tics, aye, even in the Church itself, who are no longer
Christian in the old sense of the word. Some im-
agine they have ceased to be Christians altogether,
because they feel that they can not believe as much
as others profess to believe. We can not afford to
lose these men, nor shall we lose them if we learn

268 FOREIGN MISSION WORK.

to be satisfied with what satisfied Christ and the
Apostles, with what satisfies many a hard-working
missionary. . If Christianity is to retain its hold on
Europe and America, if it is to conquer in the Holy
War of the future, it must throw off its heavy armor,
the helmet of brass and the coat of mail, and face
the world like David, with his staff, his shoes and
his sling. We want less of creeds, but more of
trust ; less of ceremony, but more of work ; less of
solemnity, but more of genial honesty ; less of doc-
trine, but more of love. There is a faith, as small
as a grain of mustard seed, but that grain alone can
move mountains, and more than that, it can move
hearts. Whatever the world may say of us, of us
of little faith, let us remember that there was one
who accepted the offering of the poor widow She
threw in but two mites, but that was all she had,
even all her living."

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, must —
absolutely must — rise to higher appreciation of her
interest and duty on this subject else she need not
to expect to meet the approbation of the Divine
Master, fill her mission on earth and have it said at
last, "Well done, good and faithful servant." The
Christian world is aroused on the subject of missions
as it never was before. More Bibles are printed,
circulated and read than at any previous period in
the world's history, and never since the day of Pen-
tecost was the gospel preached in so many tongues
or to so many peoples as it is now. Never before

FOREIGN MISSION WORK. 259

were there so many Christian ministers and teachers
in foreign fields, and never before did Christian peo-
ple pour their means into the missionary treasury
more abundantly Never before was there less fric-
tion between the different denominations of Protes-
tant Christians than there is to-day The Christian
world is taking a higher and iuster view of the great
cardinalities of our Holy Religion. Catholicity of
feeling is widening and deepening, and the Christian
men are taking a wider range of thought — looking
at things from a higher stand-point, and attaining to
a deeper, richer and more Christ-like experience ; and
the earnest cry of all true Christian hearts now is,
"The world for Christ, and Christ for All."

The M. E. Church, South, should keep step with
the foremost, and she must retain and manifest the
missionary spirit or die.

Reader, lay this to heart.

The action of the General Conference instructing
the bishops to send out one of their number to or-
dain our native preachers in China and generally to
oversee our missionary interests in that field, was,
then, conceived in the true spirit of Christianity It
was a strong and forcible move in the right direction.
It seized upon the attention of the Church, and held
it steadily to this great interest, and it gave un-
speakable comfort to the lowly laborers in that dis-
tant region. When, in obedience to these instruc-
tions, Bishop Marvin was selected for this work, it
was again a wise and salutary choice, because it en-

aeo "foreign mission work.

riched the missionary enterprise by all that wealth
of popular sympathy and affection which were per-
sonal to the* man. From point to point of travel
and labor he was followed at first with the prayerful
interest, and soon with the kindling enthusiasm of
the Church at home. There is little or no doubt
but that his appointment to this work, and effective
and appealing execution of it, have made the.begin-
ning of a new and more prosperous epoch in the
history of our foreign missions. From the date and
influence of this action, the enterprise must broaden
and brighten to an indefinite intensity and scope.
How well he discharged this high duty, his own
published letters, and those of his compagnon du
voyage, Rev E. R. Hendrix, have already told the
Church and the world. From an appendix to the
volume written by the latter, there may be appro-
priately extracted, in this place, some invaluable
testimonies to the personal character and demeanor
of the Bishop while in conduct of this great enter-
prise.

"The unrestrained intimacies of travel only re-
vealed more fully the estimable traits of character I
had long admired and loved.
• ******••
"His recent tour was made a great blessing to
every land where he touched. His guileless sim-
plicity and magnetic sympathy won all hearts. So
unpretentious was he that in many instances his title
passed for his surname, and some supposed that he

F0BE1GN MISSION WQBE. 261

was the Rev. Mr Bishop ! None who heard him
preach, however, failed to recognize the man of com-
manding intellect. On the Pacific and the Atlantic,
on the China Sea and the Bay of Bengal, on the
Arabian Sea and the iEgean, as well as in Japan,
China, Ceylon, India, Palestine, Greece, France,
and Great Britain, he preiched the gospel he loved
so well. Even in Egypt and in Turkey, he spoke in
his Master's name. He filled with peculiar ability
the trying position of a representative of his Church
to the British Wesleyan Conference, and won a just
recognition from that important body If his life
must needs have been cut short at so early a period,
it did not lack abundant and distinguished labors.

"But it is not so much the wise Bishop, the ready
writer, the eloquent preacher, that I remember as
the companion of my travels, whose name is so often
mentioned in this volume, as it is the genial and
Christian gentleman, at once father and brother.
At our family worship, on shipboard, in the almost
hourly communion of ten long months, in the inter-
change of thought and experience, what most im-
pressed me was the transparency of his character.
He made no attempt at concealment, but in the most
uninterrupted confidence disclosed the thoughts of
his inmost soul so far as he was himself conscious
of them. They showed a spirit much given to in-
trospection and consciously weak, but clinging with
an unwavering faith to Christ. Jesus was the mag-
net that could instantly attract and recover his soul.

262 FOMEIGX MISSION WORK.

He communed much and deeply with God. His
private devotions were often prolonged by intense
earnestness. He was much given, especially at
night, to ejaculatory prayer He thus constantly
threw his soul on Christ.' '

Utoajrtw £ tnxdnxiX'h.

LITERARY LABORS

BOOKS and book-making have grown so com-
mon that the Man of Uz, had he lived in our
day, must have had very exceptional adversaries if he
had needed to pray, as the last expression of profound
spite, that his " enemy would write a book." From
the monarch on his throne to the humblest garret-
scribbler, every one who can write at all fancies
that he owes posterity at least one book and that,
over all his other creditors, posterity holds a pre-
ferred claim. Men who pay no other debt are scru-
pulously careful to discharge this which is, perhaps,
at the same time the only one among many which
would be cheerfully forgiven. If the larger portion
of all the books now in the world were consumed
in a single bonfire, that blaze would be what the
term imports — a good burning. The human race
would be little poorer in knowledge or thought,
and the future chances of virtue and real culture
would be somewhere in the ratio of ten to one
Yet now, more than ever before, does the world

264 LITERAR Y LABORS.

need good and useful books, were it only to check
the growing preponderance of bud and worthless
ones. Since' the number of readers is so great and
so rapidly increasing, since reading has become a
ruling passion with so many and a staple diversion
with so many more, since nearly everybody will read
something and will commonly read that which is
nearest at hand, therefore now and hereafter, more
than in any past time, must he be reckoned
among the benefactors of men who does actually
furnish them with something worth reading. It is
probable, even, that the beneficent activities of a
life spent in evangelizing labors may not compete,
in usefulness, with the authorship of a single volume
which men will read and be profited by the reading.
And this remark is founded upon considerations so
obvious as not to need even the formality of a state-
ment. If, then, in the course of a man s life he
have written a single book, fairly and faithfully rep-
resenting the qualities and powers of his own mind,
and which at the same time will attract and benefit
other minds, he has achieved at once the greatest
and the most difficult enterprise which lay open to
his talents and opportunities. Unfortunately, of

course, no one can know whether or not he can do

•

this, until he has tried ; and even then, he can not
be quite sure of having accomplished it, until he
has been a long time dead. Following an old Egyp-
tian usage which strongly types, as do so many
other ancient practices, the customs of our later

LITE BABY LAB OB S. 265

day, a jury of inquest and judgment must sit upon
the permanent remains of every mental life, and its
finding can alone determine the value of authorship
and fix the destiny of its products.

Marvin's first book was published in 1860, in a
plain, octavo volume, entitled "Lectures on the
Errors of the Papacy " This publication occurred
during the last term of his pastorate of Centenary
Church, in St. Louis, and was the result of excep-
tional circumstances. In the Autumn of 1859, a
Roman Catholic priest, Father Smarius, undertook
to present, in a series of public addresses, the issues
between Romanists and Protestants, and naturally
performed this work in a spirit and style calculated
to sustain his own faith and overthrow that of the
Protestants. The transient local impression of his
addresses was reproduced and rendered wide, deep
and permanent by their publication, from time to
time, in the columns of the Missouri Republican
newspaper. This aroused the Protestants. They
felt that something should be done for the honor
and defense of their assaulted faith. They desired,
too, that whatever was done in this exigency should
be done well and effectively Under these circum-
stances, the eyes and voices of some of his Method-
ist brethren turned to Marvin, and suggested that
he should deliver a course of lectures for the benefit
of his congregation. At first he hesitated, saying
frankly and modestly that he did not think himself
possessed of either the learning or ability which

266 LITERARY LABORS.

could qualify him for such a work. At last he
yielded ; and when he undertook the work, he did
it as he did everything else — with all his heart and
soul. The newspaper was as kind to him as to his
opponent, and published his lectures in full, from
week to week, as they were delivered. Large audi-
ences attended their delivery in Old Centenary
Church, on the corner of Fifth and Pine, and to
accommodate larger numbers, some of the lectures
were delivered in the hall of the Mercantile Library D
The lecturer acquitted himself to the general satis-
faction of his friends, and soon after the series was
closed the publication was made in a more durable
form. The following, from the author's preface,
gives at once the history of the work in brief, and
his own estimate of its value :

44 Very unexpectedly, I find myself introduced
into the Company of Western book-makers. For
certainly it was not in all my thoughts, when I
commenced these lectures, that they would ever
take the present shape. And I ask the attention of
those who may read this volume to a very brief his-
tory of it.

******

" The propriety and duty of meeting the attack
in some efficient way was widely felt. Under these
circumstances, Rev. D. R. M'Anally, for whose
views I have long entertained a high regard, ex-
pressed to me the opinion that I ought to deliver a
course of lectures, in the Centenary Church, upon

LITEBABY LAB0B8. 267

the more prominent topics bearing upon the Papal
theory; and proposed, if I should do so, to have
them reported to the same paper which was publish-
ing the other. Deference to his views, more than a
conviction that it was my duty to step forward, in-
duced me to undertake the task. In divine; them to
the public in their present form, I act also chiefly
upon the views of my friends. Most of the matter
contained in them is already accessible to those who
desire to investigate the subject. The field has been
thoroughly explored before me. I pretend to orig-
inality only in arrangement and illustration — except
that some of the arguments are such as I have not
met with in books. They may be in print ; but, if
so, I have not seen them. But, while I have pur-
sued a course of independent thought, I have shun-
ned no argument because it was old or oft-repeated.
And as to the facts given, they are such as have
been often used before.

" The view by which I have been chiefly actuated
in publishing, is this: that these lectures will, at
present, be read by many who would otherwise read
nothing on the subject. I do not, by any means,
flatter myself that I have made a book for the
future. If I meet a present demand, it is all I pro-
pose."

What would have been Marvin's feelings could he
have foreseen that, almost twenty years later, the
old controversy would revive in the same commu-
nity, and the feeling and interest upon this subject

268 LITERARY LABORS.

become so wide-spread and profound, as to call for
and justify a republication of his lectures in new
and beautiful form, splendidly illuminated, and hav-
ing for its 'frontispiece a most life-like picture of
himself? This book is already in its second edition,
and promises to have a fine, if not a great and per-
manent sale. So true it is, that men sometimes
" build better than they know "

With regard to the matter of these lectures, a
brief statement of their scope will be better than
mere general criticism, and must in fact precede the
latter in order to render it intelligible. The author
proceeds first to demonstrate, by considerations
which appeal to the common sense of the reader,
that the tribunal of last appeal in such a discussion
must, of necessity, be Holy Scripture ; since there
is none other equally trustworthy, and since, if we
reject this, the whole discussion is idle. He then
proceeds to try, by this test, the doctrine of trans-
substantiation, and shows, as a matter of course,
that it is altogether without Scriptural support. In
answer to the question, Is Transubstantiation a mir-
acle? he proves it to be, in effect, a clumsy fiction.
Under the head of rational and Scriptural object ions
to this doctrine, he builds up a mountain of oppos-
ing testimony, under whose weight, one would think,
it must be crushed out of the belief of men. For
its practical results, he demonstrates that it materi-
alizes religion, vitiates the worship of God, perverts
the ministerial office, degrades the Atonement of

LITE BABY LABOBS. 269

Christ, invests the priest with a fictitious and dan-
gerous importance, and leads directly to infidelity.
On this subject, he concludes with a telling resume
of the history of the doctrine, including the testi-
mony of the Fathers. Then the question of the in-
fallibility of the Roman Church is considered in the
light of history, Scripture and fact, and shown to
be an airy nothing. The primacy of Peter and the
pretended succession of the Popes are examined and
dealt with in a manner which all Protestants will
feel to be conclusive. The unreliability of tradition
is clearly proved, and the right of private judgment
explained, vindicated, maintained and declared in-
vincible. Individual accountability is set right in
some strong pages, and the Romanist theory of the
unity of the Church held up in vivid and forcible
contrast with true unity. Then the real ministry of
Christ's Church is compared with the Roman priest-
hood, to the no small detriment of the latter, and
this leads to a very interesting digression on the
corruptions of worship, with some strong prophetic
delineations of the papacy The Romanist's hypoth-
ecated case is met and overturned by a stronger and
more truthful hypothesis, and his Church held ruth-
lessly in the lurid light of symbolic prophecy till
the day and circumstances of its terrible doom are
completely exposed. To this is added, a just con-
sideration of what Romanism has done for religion
and civilization, and a warm statement of the mis-
sion of Protestantism, and the volume appropriately

270 LITE R A 11 Y LABORS.

closes with a general and exhaustive review of the
whole discussion.

While it must be admitted that the construction
put upon some of the prophecies of the Sacred Scrip-
tures and the manner of applying those prophecies,
can not survive a rigid criticism — the book, with
this exception, was and is, a timely and able pre-
sentation of the chief questions in i-sue between
the two great Western branches of Christianity,
from a strictly orthodox Protestant stand-point, and
as such, has been and will continue to be apprecia-
ted by all those Churches which favor the Protest-
ant view

Marvin's next published work appeared in 1867,
a duodecimo of 137 pages, issued by P M. Pinck-
ard, and entitled "The Work of Christ ; or the
Atonement, considered in its influence upon the in-
telligent universe." Of this work the author says,
in his preface :

" There is nothing very special about this book.
There is about as little of history, I imagine, con-
nected with it, as with any book that ever came into
existence. The most remarkable fact in the case is,
the absence of any * pains of parturition.'

** The thought that is in it has given me pro-
founder satisfaction than any other of a speculative
character that I have ever conceived. I began to
write about it just from the mere pleasure I had in
employing my mind upon it. As I proceeded, I

LITE BABY LAB OB 8. 271

must plead guilty to a growing desire that it might
be published. "

The scope of this work is, to connect the whole
1 ' intelligent universe," by vital and essential rela-
tions, with that plan of human salvation which cul-
minates in the Atonement. The devils are related
to it as the authors of that aggressive enterprise of
sin by which they endeavored to subjugate the
human race to their control, and which rendered
necessary this Divinely originated antidote for moral
evil, by whose repressive energies their malignant
powers are continually and effectually held in check.
To them, it has the force and influence of a perpet-
ual and insuperable barrier. It renders hopeless
their eternal struggle to counteract the beneficent
activities of Heaven.

On the other hand the angels, and whatever other
unfallen intelligencies may exist in the universe, are
connected with it as furnishing at once an interpre-
tation of the Divine character and a revelation of
the Divine tenderness which they could never other-
wise have possessed, and a motive to perseverance
in virtue without whose powerful influence even they
might hereafter go astray. All this is wrought out
with much pains, and supported by ingenious argu-
ments and an imposing array of probable Scriptural
interpretations. The book contains passages of great
strength and beauty, of which the following may be
taken as fair though brief examples :

" The stupendous fact of the Atonement is, I

272 LITER AliY LABORS'.

verily believe, the key of all the mysteries which
cluster about the existence of evil. We have seen
that by virtue of it freedom remains to man in his
depraved condition. Beyond this it discloses a glo-
rious fact in a new and most affecting manner.
That fact is, God's love to his ckeatukks.

********
" The mind that receives the grand fact of Re-
demption can never deeply question the benificence
of the Creator He can not regard the Deity as a
Malign Power, There may be much in the divine
administration that has a sinister seeming, and that
he can not fully understand. But this resplendant
exhibition of love overcomes all such perplexities.
In its light he can rejoice, and shout ' God is love*
in the face of every contradiction.

********
" The miseries of those who trifle with life's
sacred hopes are no good ground of fuiilt-fi tiding
with the creative work, so fraught with potential
good for all, and actual good for many — life on so
high a plane as to recognize and rejoice in the Infinite
Life — life sunning itself in the Infinite Light

********
** If our faith in the ultimate Justice and the ulti-
mate Truth, as they have their expression in the
ultimate Existence, could once be shaken, then there
could remain for us no ground of faith whatever.
Or if in the ultimate Existence, which is God, there
could be shown to be short-coming and it could be

LITER ABY LABORS. 273

demonstrated that Truth and Justice are not ulti-
mate (that is, absolute) in Him, then the last guar-
antee of good government would be swept away,
and the last hope of intelligent creatures for safety
by means of an administration, which should be an
immutable protection against evil, must perish.
********

" What if it should appear that that same supreme
expression of love that has our world for its first
object, is too full and ample to be confined within
this limit and overflows upon the universe ? What
if it turns out that this agency of redemption for us
is a conservative agency for all those intelligent
creatures who have never sinned, and that the uni-
verse is to be held in its allegiance to God by this
means ?

" It is certainly, at least, not impossible that the
life and death of the ' Man of Sorrows ' have all
this meaning. The supposition is not absurd. It
may be true. The waves of infinite love, agitated
by the death-pain of Jesus, may wash all the shores
of eternity and of being. The mind throbs and
glows with joy in contemplating it as a mere possi-
bility

********

"They (the angels) knew God was preparing
some great work, and quivered with speechless joy
upon each new development in connection with it,
until in the manger they saw the wonder of the uni-
verse and raised the shout, whose echoes are still

274 LITE li All Y LABORS.

mingling with the music of the spheres. They hung
upon his steps and watched Him until they laid
their loving* wings about Him in the Agony, and
hovered in the air, astonished spectators of the
Cross. They certainly knew what was the imme-
diate purpose of all this — the redemption of man ;
but connected with it there were — and this they
knew — things they had never seen. There were dis-
coveries yet to be made. Was there some percep-
tion of the fact that their own destiny stood in some
way connected with the cross ? ' '

The above quotations will sufficiently indicate the
tone of this performance. Indeed, as the author in-
timates in his preface, it is written throughout with
sustained freshness and increasing delight.

$toptM <$i0tot**tttfc.

LITERARY LABORS CONTINUED.

THE next literary venture was the ' ' Life of
Caples," a crown- octavo, of 440 pages,
issued by the Southwestern Book and Publishing
Company, in 1870. He says in the preface :

"The writing of the Life of Caples was not
undertaken on .my own suggestion, but in compliance
with the request of the Missouri Conference, made
by formal resolution at the session of 1867, at Macon
City

"I had no time to devote to it until after my
return from the Pacific Coast, last fall. As I felt
unable for hard service in the pulpit at the time, I
proposed to devote the winter to the preparation of
this biography, preaching only on Sundays near
home. But before the work was more than fairly
begun I. was drawn into a series of revival meetings
that kept me from home nearly all the while. Away
from home inevitable engrossments of time prevented
all writing, and at home a heavy correspondence,
with other claims upon me, demanded attention.

276 LITER AllY LABORS.

The greater part of this book has, therefore, been
written by snatches, as a few hours could be com-
manded now and then. I feel persuaded that, as a
literary production, I could improve it greatly, if I
had leisure."

Those who knew Marvin will readily understand
how imperative, to his mind, were the claims of those
*' revival meetings" to which he here alludes. They
drew him away from everything else when he had an
hour of leisure ; exhausted the little strength that
remained to him after protracted official labors, and
which needed rather to be revived and increased by
uninterrupted repose. How in such brief intervals
he could write at all is little less than a marvel.
That, using only those shreds of time when he re-
turned, broken down and worn out by his violent
and long-continued exertions abroad, to spend a few
days in the quiet of his home, where still he was
hardly ever without importunate local calls upon his
attention, he should have prepared and published
such a book as his Life of Caples is, to say the
least, a fact which clearly shows the unusual vigor
and hardihood of his mental powers. The book,
though prepared under all these disadvantages, did
not disappoint the public expectation. It was warmly
welcomed and eagerly perused, by those especially
who had personally known its hero. It is a tender
and glowing tribute to the great-hearted and high-
souled friend whom Marvin had so long known, so
cordially admired, and so loyally and devotedly

LITEM ABY LAB OB 8. 277

loved. Besides, it is largely made up of the author's
own views and sentiments on questions of vital im-
portance to the Church, of which he was himself a
devoted minister. Nowhere else in his writings do
we see so much of the real man as in the Life of
Caples. In the attempt to depict his friend he has
unconsciously revealed himself. Some of its passages
are written in his happiest vein. Take, for instance,
the following picture of early itinerant life in Mis-
souri :

"At that period, when there was so much energy
in the administration of the itinerant plan, a heroic
character invested the preacher, in addition to the
sacred interest always felt in their office. A young
man caught up by this whirlwind might be let down
almost anywhere. Wherever he might be, he would
have a circuit large enough for a principality, with
all the incidents of bridgeless streams and pathless
forests and consuming labors. There was a sort of
railroad activity in the itinerancy, while all else was
in the heavy jog of the sober old time. Friends and
neighbors, therefore, followed the young evangelist
with a romantic interest as he disappeared in im-
possible distances, with no railroad, nor telegraph
wire, nor scarcely an old-fashioned stage line to
disenchant the scene. He was out swimming rivers
on horseback, wandering of tempestuous nights in
morasses, with the howl of the wolf and the scream
of the panther making chorus in the song of the
wind and thunder, attacked by wolves, or mayhap

278 LITERARY LABORS.

(as Hugh Miller would say) by savage Indians. All
this on an errand of love, with nothing that could
be called pay as the world goes ; moved by the self-
same motive that brought the Master down from
heaven to suffer and to die. He was out on the
Master's business — to seek and to save the lost."

To which may be added, as a companion-piece,
the following :

"No preacher on a circuit thought of boardirqj
anywhere. He had no time to board. He was never
in the same neighborhood more than a day or two in
three or four, or may be six weeks. He lived with
his people. Many of the preachers were unmarried,
and if one had a family he was at home but little.
They were almost always on the hospitality of the
brethren, and the brethren loved to have it so. It
was a bright day when the preacher came, especially
if he came to stay all night. The children looked
on him almost as an angel of God. The faces of
the servants (where there were any) glowed, and
the preacher and the preacher's horse (always a
notable animal) were at home"

There can be little doubt that the materials of
such pictures were drawn mainly from the author's
own vivid recollection of his early itinerant experi-
ences. The following, again, is a fine expression of
his ideal of ministerial spirituality:

"The minister must be often in the « mountain/
or his coming into the multitude will amount to but
little. Jacob comes to be Israel, « a prince of God,'

LITE BABY LABOBiS. 279

who prevails with God and men only after he
wrestles with the angel to the last extremity — -till
his thigh is out of joint. Thus disabled he wrestles
still, even when ready to die under the weight of his
Omnipotent antagonist — never faltering in the im-
portunate purpose of the struggle : ' I will not let
thee go except thou bless me.' Thus prevalent with
God he goes forth to conquer men."

So, speaking of Caples' views on the subject of
popular amusements, he lets us see as clearly his own* ,
opinions as those of his subject :

" Well he knew how destructive of all true piety
these places are. They are of the world — corrupt
and corrupting. No sophistry would blind him to
the fatal character of all such godless diversions.

"Young preachers are often perplexed by the
shallow but specious sophistries of those carnal
professors who defend dancing as an innocent recre-
ation. Good people in the Bible times danced, say
they No one ever approached Mr. Caples with that
pretext without being made to feel his own wicked

silliness.

*********

"I remember that, in Dr. McAnally's office,
when he was in St. Louis on his agency of Central
College, he condemned, in most unmeasured terms,
our agricultural fairs. He maintained that while
they might, in some slight measure, promote the
improvement of valuable farm products and stock,
they would a thousand times more stimulate horse-

280 LITERARY LABORS.

racing and gambling- Ho would no more encourage
them than he would the race-coursec When occa-
sion offered, he did not hesitate to denounce them
from the pulpit. In doing so he encountered a
clamorous public opinion, both in and out of the
church. But he never quailed before public opinion.
He was true to his own convictions. When they
were clear and well-settled he would announce them
in the face of any sort of derision, and stand by
them against the weight of any social pressure

"At the time I differed with him as to the charac-
ter and tendency of the agricultural fairs. But I
have lived to see that he was right and I was wrong.
And here, while I commemorate the wisdom of my
departed brother, I renew his warnings. I do most
solemnly and earnestly advise Christian men to keep
clear of these places, and, above all, to keep their
sons away from such schools of vice."

Here, whatever one may think of the merits of
such a judgment, we must commend the. frankness
of its public utterance. No doubt in such instances
we obtain a glimpse of the old Puritanic strain in
Marvin's blood. The following words at least show
the depth and earnestness of conviction with which
he continued to cherish theso views :

*' I dwell on this subject because it is vital. We
are in greater danger here, as I have no doubt, than
at any other point. The problem of personal salva-
tion lies in great part in the fact of self denial It
will do us no good to be worldly people in the

LITEBABT LABOBiS. 281

Church. If we are determined to be worldly people
at all hazards, it is far better to sail under the world's
colors at once. If we are of the world in heart and
practice, to belong to the Church is only an affecta-
tion, a hypocrisy If the devil is our master, let us
openly confess him. « If the Lord be God, serve
him; but if Baal, serve him.' Let us not mingle
the stench of the world with the incense that goes
up from the altars of God. If we offer a vain
oblation, the stench of a carnal devotion, let us lav
it boldly on the altars of Baal."

Again, as an example of Marvin's power of word-
painting, let the reader take this description of an
Annual Conference held during the war :

"These sessions were held in troublous times.
The internecine struggle had raged around the
preachers with concentrated fury They had been
* in perils oft.' They had been looking daily for
violent deaths. As ministers, in their pulpits and
ecclesiastical conventions, they had been servants of
the Lord Christ. As individual men, most of them
had been Southern sympathizers. The very name of
their Church bore, as a suffix, the word ' South.'
They were suspected men. However pure their
church record might be from any political stain,
even the slightest, a suspicious eye was upon all
their assemblages. No circumspection of individual
demeanor could avert malignant rumor. Private
enmities and ecclesiastical jealousies were ever on
their track, invoking military interference.

282 LITERARY L.LBORN.

<<

In these times it was a sublime courage that
attempted the holding of a conference at all. Every
man who left home to attend did so under the appre-
hension that he might never return. Thev committed
themselves and their families to God at parting
* with prayers and tears' that will never be forgotten.
Verily they * sowed in tears.' The sword was per-
petually over them, held by a hand not unwilling to
strike "

Or, to the same pictorial effect, this description of
the immediate results of one of Caple's sermons :

" The Gospel became greater and more glorious.*
The very light of heaven seemed to have baptized
the place. All that is loveliest and most exalting in
spiritual beauty and immortal hope came within the
sphere of vision. It was no mere passionate raving
— it was a grand progress of thought from exordium
to peroration ; not mere thoughts, though, cold and
luminous, but a lava flood* bursting up from un-
known, unfathomable, mysterious tire depths."

Here the impression is so vivid that the reader can
almost sec and hear for himself The temptation to
go on with the extract is strong, but inconsistent
with the limits of the present work. The book itself
will well repay an attentive reading; not more, as
has been hinted, for a fine portrayal of a worthy
subject than for its interesting revelations of the
mind of its author.

In 1872 there appeared, first in the pages of the
Southern Quarterly Review, and subsequently in a

LITEBABY LAB OB 8. 283

duodecimo of 90 pages, by the Southwestern Book
& Publishing Company, Marvin's Review of Red-
ford's " History of the Organization of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church, Soiith." Some quotations
from this essay, as illustrative of its author's views
and feelings on the Southern question, have already
appeared in this work, and to these, if one consulted
only the intrinsic worth of the extracts, many more
might be added. As an instance of what is called
fine writing in the best sense — i. e., lofty, by the
elevation of its thought, and beautiful, by the vigor
and terseness of its expression — it is quite the best
which he has ever given to the public. Evidently it
contains the matured reflections of many years,
which had gathered force by a long period of habitual
repression, and which now, at last, ran freely forth
in the open pages of the Quarterly Some passages
almost refuse to be suppressed. To instance, what
can be finer than this description of the season's
gentle influences, on the occasion of the assembling
of the General Conference, in 1844, in New York
City:

" So matters stand as the sun of the last April
day smites the empire of death with the silent, quiet
power of his rays, and, breaking the invisible chain
from the latent life of field and forest, calls it forth
in the vernal resurrection. The Methodist homes of
the great city are astir with hospitable preparation,
and the unknown guests are coming in. Brethren
greet each other complacently, and cordial re-unions

284 LITERARY L^LBORS.

from the North and from the South give happy
augury of peace Men of God say to each other,
' We shall have no disturbing issues this session.'
The ecclesiastical heavens were never more serene.
The genial spring was in men's hearts and faces, as
well as in the fields, and the Church, itself seemed
rejuvenescent under the beneficent touch of the
spiritual spring-time."

One almost catches in these words a sense of the
lull which preceded the great storm of 1844* Again,
in the qualities of brevity and exhaustiveness, what
can surpass this statement of the reasons why Bishop
Andrew must desist from exercising the functions of
his episcopal office?

** Why ? Has he violated any law of the Church?
No Has he violated any law of the State? No.
Has he violated any law of God? No. Does not
the specific law of the Church governing such cases
hold him harmless? Yes. What law has he vio-
lated, then? The law of the Northern conscience —
this, and no other And the tribunal before which
he was compelled to appear was the Northern
Conscience! It was an inexorable tribunal, which
trampled all law under its feet, except its own in-
spirations."

And, for scornful and indignant banter, what can
exceed this passage on the subject of church union?

" The proposition for a re-union comes, moreover,
at an inopportune moment. Just when the effort to
4 disintegrate and absorb* is demonstrated to be a

LITER ABY LABORS. 285

failure the movement for a re-union comes up. The
change of policy and tone is too sudden. Those
warm words smoke with a suspicious odor The
flavor of ' disintegration and absorption' seems to
linger in them. Do they mean absorption without
disintegration? Time ought to have been given for
fumigation, to clear away the effluvium of the so-
recently dead * policy ' Do not these warm words
smack also of a move on the political chess-board?
Is there not a purpose to swell the church census and
gain prestige, so as to ' control the government?'
Is this, and not brotherly love and the salvation of
souls, the real end of absorption, with or without
disintegration ? These vapors will arise out of the
grave of the dead policy. They appear in the dark,
with a wierd, phosphorescent aspect, to give us
warning. They take spectral forms, that seem to
mutter broken sentences of resolutions we have seen
reported by ' committees* on the state of the country,'
and adopted by unanimous acclamation in annual
conferences. They bring echoes, at the same time,
from our memory of things we were wont to see,
not more than two or three years gone, in Northern
Methodist prints, to the eflect that the Southern
Church was a rebel Church, that the war had ended
too soon ; intimating that because it did not at once
strike its colors to the conquering Church it was to
be suspected ; as if the war had been made in the
interest of a sectional and domineering ecclesiasti-
cism, which was wronged and injured in the failure

286 LITE11AEY LABORS.

of the war to make a conquest of a neighboring
Church for it. There was much impatient and
petulant speech of this sort That the Church,
South, should still live and thrive and go on doing
the Lord's work, in its own proper field, after its
neighbor of the North had contributed so much
treasure and blood — yea, and prayer, too — for its
destruction, seemed intolerable. These men seemed
to think that the war had been made upon the
Southern Church as well as upon the Confederate
Government, and for their behoof. The political
had become so deeply wrought into the ecclesiastical
consciousness that they blended themselves in their
church affairs and ambition^ with the ' Government*
perpetually. That the ■' Government' should suc-
ceed and their conquest fail was too bad. They had
helped the Government so lustily, too, and had
borne it on to a grand triumph, and now, in the hour
of its victory, it left the Southern Church, their
coveted prize, to go on in peace right before the face
of them.

" We repeat it, before the invitation was sent to
the banquet of love there ought to have been time
given for fumigation. These odors ought to have
been cleared away "

There is space for but a single additional passage,
and that shall be the peroration with which this
article concludes :

44 Fifty years hence — we cannot doubt it — there
will be a Methodist Church in the land, in poise

LITEBABY LABOBS. 287

amid the factions of the hour, pure amid its tempta-
tions, her candlestick still in his place, her light
burning with the pure flame of inspiration and faith,
her eyes lifted, her hands clean from bribes, her
robes of linen clean and white ; the righteousness of
saints washed in the blood of the Lamb ; revered by
all who love the Lord Jesus, and hated only by his
enemies ; her children dwelling in peace in the South
and in the North, in the West and in the East, with
Republican and Democrat, Radical and Conservative,
alike calling her blessed. She will excite the sus-
picion and hatred of none by allying herself with an
adverse party, upon issues that arouse the passions
of the hour, but lie outside of her proper sphere.
She will move with a grand but quiet energy amid
the affairs of men, the representative of Christ to
all, the political ally or enemy of none. She will
stand for Christ, recognized by all, upon a plane far
above the level of those contests which come and
go with the energy and the swiftness of the tornado.
She will abjure both the riches and the power which
might reward a lewd and bewitching coquetry with
some successful party in the State. She will be
known, and loved, and hated as the chaste spouse
of Christ. Her character will give full force and
meaning to the Word of God committed to her.

" This is the destiny of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South — a destiny that she cannot alienate.
She must * stand in her lot to the end of the
days.'

> >

288 LITERARY LABORS.

Next we have (issued in 187(>) a volume of ser-
mons, in a neat crown-octavo of 552 pages, by
the Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, Nashville, Tennessee. This contains
eighteen discourses, and into these are compressed,
as a matter of course, the ripest and best products
of the author's mind, working in his favorite field of
theological oratory It is dedicated to his wife, in
a few graceful and well-chosen words, which, warm
and tender as they appear, do but inadequately
express that sense of her surpassing merits which is
wide as the circle of her acquaintance and deep in
proportion to its intimacy The words themselves
are worthy of particular quotation in a work devoted
to the memory of their writer. They are as follows :

"TO MY WIFE,
Mrs. HARRIET BROTHERTON MARVIN,

To whose cheerful self-denial and devotion to my
work ; to whose rigid economy in administering
domestic expenditures ; to whose ready adjustment
of her wants to the exigencies of a meager support
in our earlier life ; to whose careful and godly train-
ing of our children, in my protracted absence from
home, and to the example of whose faith and purity
of heart I am more deeply indebted, as a Methodist
preacher, than any one except our Maker can know

— this volume is

Affectionately Inscribed . ' '

The author's acknowledgments are frank and

LITEBABY LABOBS. 289

cordial, and include in their grateful expression the
Agent of the House at Nashville (Dr. Bedford), the
editor of the sermons (Dr Summers), and the
superintendent of the printing department (Mr. B.
T. Spillers). His concluding words are: "These
gentlemen have my blessing. May the peace of
God be upon them."

With immediate reference to the Sermons, he says
in the preface :

"These Sermons, all except four of them, have
been preached ; the matter constituting the four has
been preached, though not in the form in which it is
cast here.

"When I say they have been delivered from the
pulpit, I do not mean that they were delivered
verbatim as they are given here ; for they were
properly extemporaneous, only the analysis having
been made beforehand, and that without the use of
the peli — for I have never made even the briefest
notes for twenty-five years past, except in a very few
instances, when accuracy of reference and quotation
was necessary

"But while it is strictly true that these Sermons
have been preached, they do not reappear in the
book with verbal precision. Some of them have
been used frequently in the course of several years,
but never repeated word for word ; yet I suppose
those who have heard them will see that the sub-
stance of them is preserved, and, to a considerable
extent, the phraseology as well."

<#tt»ttte* Nineteenth.

LITERARY LABORS — CONTINUED.

WITH regard to nearly, if not quite, all these
sermons, the general remark may be haz-
arded, that they were not made, but grew They are
the last results of long and frequent exercise on a
given train of thought, and of those mental accretions
which insensibly and almost unconsciously gather
around it in the course of such a process. Their hap-
pier passages were struck out when the brain of their
author was at white heat under the stormful impulses
of successful oratory. These passages returned,
fixed themselves in his memory, and were uttered
again and again as the exigencies of other and similar
occasions called them forth, until at last they were
gathered up and arranged in the ultimate form of
the written and printed sermons. An understanding
of this fact is necessary to even an intelligent read-
ing of the discourses. One cannot otherwise account
for the sudden and apparently uncaused glow and
light of certain passages. Unprepared with this
knowledge, the sober reader, pursuing his quiet way
by ordinary and familiar thought-processes, is sud-

LITEBABY LABOBS. 291

denly set upon, startled and bewildered by the play
of wildly passionate forces. He does not under-
stand the origin of this unexpected burst of light
and glow of heat. It is only that the author has
transcribed, just here, one of those passionate out-
pourings of actual discourse, caught from the in-
spiration of an excited moment, and subsequently
daguereotyped upon his memory The following
selections, from different sermons, will supply the
reader with a sufficiently accurate notion of their
general tone and style. To realize all their excel-
lency he must read them carefully for himself :

'* The Decalogue comes to us incorporated into a
history the most striking, the most impressive, that
was ever written, and was promulgated amid scenic
displays that turned a nation pale. Even now, after
the lapse of thousands of years, with no participa-
tion of personal interest in the events of the history,
we are filled with awe in contemplating the situation
of the people in the desert, so lately delivered with
a high hand from Egypt, and now at the base of
Mount Sinai, gazing in dismay upon its summit and
sides, enwrapped by black, massy, moving volumes
of cloud and smoke, which were agitated and parted
by jets of flame, chain-lightning meanwhile writing
the name Jehovah on /the blackness, and the trumpet
blast waxing louder and louder, till it jars the
mountain, while ever, at brief intervals, peals of
thunder rive the cliffs and shame all common terrors.
Now and here, at this distance of time and place,

282 LITERARY LABORS.

we gaze upon the scene, and our spirits bow them-
selves down before God to receive his law "

" Subdued, awed, chastened, strengthened oy this
history, already smitten with Godhead, they came to
Sinai in the desert. The scenery, top, impressed
them. They had never seen mountains until of late.
These unusual sublimities awe them. Moses forewarns
them of an impending interview with God. They
must wash their clothes. They must not tolerate
the slightest impurity upon their persons nor in their
tents ; for God was about to speak to them. The
day approaches. They are removed from the base
of the mountain, which is to be the theatre of the
Presence. No man nor beast shall touch it, on pain
of death. Expectation is breathless. The hour is
at hand. The coming of God is imminent. The
hush is perfect through all the camp. The silence
is awful. All things are waiting for God!

" There is a sound. It is the sound of a trumpet*
It is the trumpet of God. How deep ! how solemn !
and the great waves of it sweep far over the desert
and reverberate among distant mountains. It is
prolonged. It waxes louder and louder and louder
Still it is prolonged, still waxes louder and louder,
until it shakes the mountains, and there is an earth-
quake. All at once the cloud, the black smoke,
rolling in masses, the thick darkness, broken at
intervals by a leap of chain-lightning or an outburst
of devouring flame, envelop the summit. God has

L1TEBAB7 LAB OB 8. 293

come. He is on the mountain, hiding his presence
in the black canopy And now thunders of seven-
fold power and loudness crown the terrors of the
day."

Speaking of Jesus Christ as the last and greatest
revelation of God to men, he says :

"In every fact that can assist the ear, or reach the
understanding, or engage the heart, this final reve-
lation is the highest expression of the wisdom of
God. It comes to man in precisely the same form
and voice that touch him most deeply and win him
most effectually A man, such as Jesus of Nazareth,
so pure, so unselfish, so full of love, so free from
self-assertion, doing good, doing nothing but good,
loving his enemies, rendering good for evil — a man
dying as he did, so dignified and self-contained in
the midst of all the aggravation and insults of the
mock trial, persistently loving his murderers to the
last, praying for them even while they were nailing
him to the cross — such a man, even if he were but a
man, must command the homage of the whole world.
But he calls himself the Son of God, one with the
Father, and speaks, to us of our souls, of our sins,
of death, of judgment, of eternity, of the kingdom
of God, of the new birth ; when we hear words
coming out of his mouth that make our hearts burn,
words that throb in us like great life-pulses from
God, we feel that he has had an attraction upon us
never felt before. It is God coming upon us through
human charmers and magnetizing us through those

294 LITER ART LABORS.

sympathies that open the heart of man to his brother.
He comes upon us in the form of a brother, and
from this vantage ground speaks to us."
Again, look at this picture of heaven :
" My conception of heaven is not what it was some
years ago. Then my ideas of it were formed chiefly
from the semi-sensuous, poetical descriptions given
of it in the last chapters of the Apocalypse. True,
I still cling to these, and enjoy that side of the com-
ing glory as intensely as I did then. I love to think
of the * great white throne,' and of the river of life ;
of the sea of glass, and of the line linen, white and
clean, which is the righteousness of saints ; of the
house where many mansions are, and of the angels
and men redeemed from the earth, the just made
perfect. I love to hear, in imagination, the music
and the worship and the shouting, which shall be
like the voice of many waters and mighty thunders.
Nor do I doubt that there is a place called heaven,
*the metropolis of Jehovah's empire,' where infinite
creative skill has brought into objective expression
the highest, divinest types of beauty and grandeur
for the delectation of the children of God. In this
home of the just there is nothing to offend. The
splendor of it is but feebly suggested in the fact
that the very foundations of the outer walls — the
meanest stones in all the city — are emerald, and
jacinth, and sardonyx, and beryl ; the meanest
stones are gems, and the pavement of the streets is
gold."

LITEBABY LABORS. 295

Or this description of the coming of Christ :

"A star from the visible heavens and an angel
from the invisible announced his advent, and a jubi-
lant host suddenly appeared, 'praising God, and
saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, good-will toward men.' His wisdom at twelve
years of age amazed the doctors in the temple. At
his baptism the heavens were opened, the Holy
Ghost descended upon him, and God pronounced
him his Son in an awe-inspiring proclamation.
Thenceforth nature submitted herself to him, in all
her powers and processes. Fierce winds hushed
themselves under his voice ; tempestuous waters
were a pavement under his feet ; the sources of life
were commanded by his word. While he was on the
cross the earth shuddered and broke her granite
heart, and the sun disappeared in horror from the
skies ; and after he was dead and buried, he rose
again and ascended into the heavens, and now sitteth
at the right hand of the Father, until he shall come
again at the last day to judge tlie quick and the
dead."

Such descriptions incline one to wonder if, in the
Welsh blood which he drew from his mother, there
did not mingle some of the strong and vivid qualities
which we discern in the sermons of Christmas
Evans ; since, for aught any one knows to the con-
trary, that same Welsh preacher might have been his
ancestor.

Marvin's posthumous work consists of letters of

298 LITERAR Y LABORS.

travel, written and mailed during his voyage round
the world, and published from time to time, as they
came to hand, in the columns of the Nashville
Christian Advocate. These collected letters make
a crown-octavo volume of nearly 600 pages, issued
by Bryan, Brand & Company, St. Louts, Mo. It is
embellished with an excellent likeness of the Bishop,
and printed in good style. This book is already
popular, and meets with a ready sale- It contains
an introduction by T O. Summers, D.D., the editor
of the paper in which the letters first appeared, and
has appended the discourse delivered on the occasion
of Bishop Marvin's funeral obsequies, by Bishop
McTyeire, one of his colleagues, who was elected at
the same time and place with himself to the epis-
copal office The following is from the introduction :
" When the General Conference of 1874 requested
one of the Bishops to# visit China, in the interest
of our missionary work, and when the College of
Bishops appointed Bishop Marvin to perform this
service, as the President of the Board of Missions,
I heartily approved of the suggestion that the Bishop
should extend his tour, inspect the operations of
the various Missionary Societies in other parts of the
world, and attend the session of the British Confer-
ence- to represent our connection before that vener-
able body In the address of that Conference to
the (iencral Conference of the M E. Church, South,
to be presented at its next session, the British breth-
ren say that the visit of the Bishop and his traveling

LITE BABY LAB OB S. 297

companion (Rev E. R. Henclrix) ' afforded them no
ordinary pleasure,' which we can well believe.

"I requested him to furnish me a letter every
week during his tour, and he did so. All his letters
came safely to hand, so that they appeared regularly
in successive numbers of the Christian Advocate.
They were written on ship-board, in tents and in
khans — currente calamo — sometimes on coarse paper
with a pencil ; and yet they required but a compara-
tively small amount of revision. Some slips in facts
and dates, names of persons and places, and slight
inaccuracies of expression, were unavoidable — but it
was a labor of love to prepare them for the public
eye. It may be safely said that few such letters from
the Orient were ever written, and few men could
write any like them.

"Bishop Marvin could not have produced a work
like this, if he had not possessed a mind of unusu-
ally clear perceptions, a sound judgment, poetic and
imaginative powers of a high order, indomitable
energ}^, and unquenchable zeal in the cause of Christ.

"The benefit conferred upon the Church by this
missionary tour, thus faithfully and picturesquely
reported, is incalculable. It has made the pulse of
the Church beat higher ; it has enlarged our view of
the mission field, and suggested plans for its cul-
tivation ; it has greatly strengthened the hands and
comforted the hearts of our little band of mission-
aries in China, and those of other Churches in the

298 LITERARY LABORS.

lands visited by him ; and the publication of his
letters will do much to fan the flame of missionary
zeal in the wide-spread Connection in which he was
so bright an ornament and in which he labored with
so much zeal and success."

To these warm words of Dr Summers there may
be added the still better testimony of some brief
extracts from the book itself. Take, for example,
this picture of the mingled effects of moonlight and
cloud-shadow at sea :

"Last night, when the moon was at an angle of
ten degrees with the eastern horizon, a broad path-
way of pearl strewed the ocean under her smile,
while both to the northward and southward heavy
clouds frowned upon the water, and the darkness, in
contrast with the glow toward the east, seemed not
mere darkness, but something more positive This
immediate vicinity and contrast of glow and gloom
produced a strange effect upon me. It was a fascin-
ation. There was a subdued sense of exaltation.
Existence seemed to come into a new expression, and
infinite mysteries to be half disclosed, but yet con-
cealed, and to offer their import at just the distance
to tantalize you most deeply "

Or this effect, upon the missionary Bishop, of his
first view of the work in China.

" For myself, I believe I never felt the grandeur
of the Kingdom of God so fully before. It is just
now collecting its energies for the final campaign in
the conquest of the world. The advance lines of the

LITEM ABY LAB OB S. 299

all-conquering host front the enemy where he is
massed in his greatest strength, and entrenched in
his most formidable defenses. The powers of dark-
ness are enthroned, but the God of light already
advances upon them, and they begin to be aware of
the glory of his approach. No human destiny can
be greater than that of participating in the labors
and dangers of the deepening combat. It may in-
volve martyrdom — I doubt -not it will — but that
blood which is shed for Christ is most precious in
his sight. O, Son of God ! is it not a joy to die for
thee?"

The following view of the character and capacity
of the Chinese will certainly have, for the people of
this country, all the attractions of novelty, however
they may differ about its trustworthiness :

" There is not, in my mind, the slightest doubt
remaining that the Chinaman is as susceptible of
Christian agencies as any other man, and as capable
of taking on the highest type of Christian charac-
ter. He is a man, though an idolater, and when
the subject of converting grace, he has as deep and
rich a sense of God as human nature is capable of.
His faith is as strong and commanding, his power of
self-denial as great, his love as pure, and his life as
devoted, as that of the European or American. It
is true that the Chinese civilization, though elabo-
rate, is decidedly low as compared with that of
Europe or America ; but the main cause of this, I
am satisfied, is found in the false religion in which

300 LITER AH Y LABORS.

lie has been bred for ages. I think it is also true
that the sense of integrity in the average Chinaman
is low, comparatively ; but the same cause again has
produced this result. The knowledge of God will
bring out both the civilization and the average'char-
acter of the Chinese, and raise them to the highest
plane."

And what a fire of missionary zeal ought to be
kindled in the hearts of Southern Methodists, when
they read such words as these and remember that
the glowing pen which wrote them will write noth-
ing more in this world !

" Shall not our Zion have a host to come up at
last from this Empire, the American missionary and
the Pagan convert rising together from the same
dust, and hailing the descending Lord with a ming-
led shout, responding to his voice? For the Lord
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout
when he comes to gather his redeemed from the four
corners of the earth.

" <) \ the blessed toil of the missionary ! What
if he is unheeded by tons of thousands of the blind
heathen to whom ho lifts up his voice? Some hear
and are saved, and the number is swelled in an ever-
lasting ratio. China will turn to the Lord! I feel
it ; I almost see it What if he is half- forgotten at
home? lie is never forgotten in Heaven. There is
an eye that follows him with love bv night and by
day, the eye that never slumbers.

4i How I would love to labor and die here among

LITE BABY LAB OB 8. 301

these missionaries of the cross. How I would love
to rise at the last day in the midst of a multitude of
heathen converts ! "

The following indicates that train of habitual
thinking by which his faith in the Chinese Mission
is sustained and reinforced :

"The evangelization of China proceeds quietly
but moves forward with, divine energ;v The oreat-
est changes are prepared silently The meteorolog-
ical conditions that introduce the cyclones are noise-
less. The rays that loosen the iceberg from the
moss upon which it was formed, are unobserved.
Cataclysms are the outcome of silent forces. So
Christian ideas are making their way in China. Far
beyond the range of apparent results these vital
truths are insinuating themselves into the minds of
men, and God's Word accomplishes that whereunto
it is sent. The great event is coming. China will
bend the knee to the Son of God."

The following will serve as a foundation for manv
a circuit-rider's fervent exhortation against the
wearing of jewelry :

"The Malay woman is bedizened with jewelry.
I saw one standing in the door of a poor house,
whose fingers, wrists, ears and nostrils were loaded.
There were light rings at the top of the ear, and
heavy ones at the bottom. Those in the nose were
not suspended from the central cartilage, but from
the outside of the nostril.

* ' I thought of my countrywomen who undertake

802 LITERARY LABORS.

to make savages of themselves by mutilating their
ears to get a place from which to hang jewelry. Let
them come here and see what these ambitious hea-
then women do, if they wish to learn what is prac-
ticable in that line. I confess, I like to see things
done thoroughly, when they are done at all, and not
minced at. If a woman is going to have holes bored
in her ears, why not in her nose? and why not, two,
as I have seen, on the outside of each nostril? And
why not two in each ear, as the Malay belles do,
the one in the lower part half an inch long, the car-
tilage being stretched down by the weight of the
jewel? Let the young ladies of America send out
to Singapore for the fashions, or quit the practice
altogether "

The following life-like sketch of a very heathen
practice, with the evident mental application to
home-affairs of the concluding remark, is quite
characteristic :

" Devil-worship is very prevalent among the
heathen. It does not belong to Buddhism, as such,
but the Buddhists of Ceylon are all devil-worshipere,
besides being Buddhists. All sickness is believed
to be caused by the evil one. A 'devil-priest* is
called. The people collect about the house where
the sick man is. Ceremonies begin at dark and run
through the whole night. The tom-tom, a rude
drum, is beaten all night. The priest dances in a
frightful mask. The devil is incessantly invoked
and appealed to, to release the victim. Sometimes

LITE BABY LAB OB 8. 303

the priest tries his wit on his Satanic Majesty, and
if he is gifted in that way, will set the spectators in
a roar of laughter occasionally- So passes the live-
long night, and at dawn an effigy of the patient is
taken out ot the house and buried, whereby the
devil is supposed to be deceived, and leave the
place. Does the patient recover? Sometimes he
does, sometimes he does not, of course. Instances
of recovery are sufficiently common to keep the rem-
edy in credit. No doubt the priests might fill an
almanac with certificates every year ' '

At Madras, he found and noted a still greater ex-
travagance in the matter of jewelry The passage
is again so characteristic as to justify quotation :

"In addition to the jewels in the ears and on the
outside of the nostrils, as in Ceylon and the Straits,
they had them suspended also from the cartilage
that divides the nostrils. Three pieces of jewelry
vibrating from the end of the nose, with every
movement of the head, did look odd enough. But
generally those on the outside of the nostrils are
shaped like a button, and lie against the side of the
nose, while the middle one is a ring, dangling upon
the upper lip. Come to India, my countrywomen,
and learn how to wear jewelry ! You ought to be
ashamed of yourselves to have only one hole bored
in each ear. When you pretend to do anything, do
it. I have seeh a woman with thirty-two in her

ears and nose."

His estimate of the intelligence and capacity of

804 LITERARY LABORS.

the native East Indian will sound, to many ears,
still more extravagant than that which has already
been adduced in praise of the Chinaman :

" From all I hear, I conclude that they are not
inferior to the European in intellectual capacity A
want of vigor there may he — an absence, alike, of
the spring- and endurance found in higher latitudes —
but not of native intelligence, though it is the opin-
ion of some that there are specific differences of
mental development. One missionary of large ex-
perience, a representative of the London Missionary
Society, told me that they excel in mathematics and
logic, but are wanting in common sense. Through
want of common sense they often set out with faulty
premises, but the argument from the premises will
always be perfect ; and once in a line of logical
sequences, the Hindoo will follow it, no matter
which way it leads or where it lands."

The mingling of broad and far-reaching views
with pasionately fervent appeal, which appears
in the following passage, may fitly close these ex-
tracts from a volume which, fully to appreciate as it
deserves, one must read for himself:

•* The Church has not yet begun to realize the
magnitude of her undertaking. Consecrated men
in great numbers will have to devote their lives to
the work. The spirit of prayer — the agony of un-
conquerable supplication — must come upon the uni-
versal Church. It is doubtful if anywhere, even in
the most spiritual communities, there is the fulness

LITEM AB Y LAB OBS. 305

of faith, the irrepressible order of spirit, which
must be witnessed before the power of heathenism
can be overthrown. What a divine momentum will
that be that will bear the host of God's elect for-
ward against all the forces that rise against them,
until the faith of Christ shall overmaster all !
Meanwhile the work goes on — and I say it with de-
liberation— the work goes on more rapidly than the
inadequate means employed by the fchurch would
warrant us to expect. There can be no doubt of
this. In proportion to the actual outlay ', the results
are great. But in view of the work to be done,
and the untouched resources of the Church, the out-
lay has been small indeed. I feel abashed before
God when I think of it."

It need hardly be said, that the volume under
consideration surpasses, in general interest, any
previous work of its author. All who are inter-
ested in the subject of foreign missions, and many
who feel no interest in this question, but are curious
of foreign usages, eagerly seek this book. It may,
in fact, be reckoned among the author's freshest,
best and most equally written productions.

There is, however, one work of Bishop Marvin
which, for the reason that it has not yet been pub-
lished, except in a transient and fugitive form, does
not enter into the above comparison.* This is his
"Doctrinal Integrity of Methodism;" a literary

*This work has since been published, in book form, by the
Advocate Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo.

306 LITERARY LABOBS.

labor of broader scope and higher aims, all things
considered, than any other which he had undertaken
in the whole, course of his life. The title will indi-
cate, to some extent, but insufficiently, the charac-
ter of the book which is soon to be issued by the Ad-
vocate Publishing House, St. Louis. It is evident that
this theme, handled as Bishop Marvin could and did
treat it, must have an almost unbounded popularity
in Methodist circles, both at home and abroad.
Better, however, than any mere words of commen-
dation, will be some samples of its style and spirit.
The following passages from its introduction will be
in point :

" For some reasons, I am led to look to the
foundations now with some degree of solicitude.
We are living at a critical juncture of the world's
history. There are times when the current of affairs
becomes sluggish, and for a few generations there is
scarcely a perceptible change. Then, again, all at
once, new ideas and new social forces start into ac-
tivity, and in ten years' time such changes take
place that the world scarcely knows itself Such
was the case in Germany in Luther's time, and in
England under Henry VIII It would not be diffi-
cult to point out many other such epochs in different
countries and ages. No doubt that during the dull,
quiescent periods things do move and get into new
adjustments, but are so held in check by conserva-
tive obstructions, that no decided progress is appar-
ent. But at last the obstructed current swells to a

LITEBABY LAB OB 8. 307

volume too heavy for the conservative barriers that
repress it. When they break before it, woe to any-
thing that stands in the way of its headlong plunge.

" I believe that in Christendom the monument of
the ages is a true progress. But the channel is so
tortuous and so gorged in places with the debris of
the past, and with accumulations of falsehood and
prejudice and depravity, that many times the cur-
rent is forced backward, and so the movement is not
always progress. There has been, ofttimes, alas for
us, retrogression instead. Ofttimes, again, the stream
overflows and, perforce, digs new channels for itself.
In that case many a fair inheritance is swept away
Such are the hard conditions under which humanity,
ignorant and depraved as it is, is able to go forward
to better things, even with the help of the incarnate
Saviour

" If my observation has not deceived me, we are
even now in the midst of a movement as forceful
and irregular as any in the past ages. There is
always, in the very nature of these movements,
cause for alarm. There is danger in them, even the
best of them. Among the forces at work there is
much depravity of thought and feeling. The move-
ment is not always that of the wise leader. Not
unfrequently it is the raging of a blind demi-god
roused by some chance to fury. There is much un-
wise demolition of structures that must be builded

again."

The following, on the increasingly popular topic

308 LITERARY LABORS.

of " Women's Rights," will be read with delight
by many :

" Among the social elements coming into active
force, the chief are * Women's Rights,' so-called,
and Communism. The Woman's movement assails,
without any mincing or disguise — or at least many
of its advocates do, and, logically, it comes to that
— the Scriptural order as to domestic relations. A
large proportion of its champions are infidels. The
system itself is, logically, infidel and disorganizing.
It is fatal to the existence of the family, and that is
the corner-stone of all organization, both social and
civil. Without the family the State goes to pieces,
and anarchy takes possession of the world. Then
civilization itself becomes impossible. Loosen wo-
man from her Heaven-appointed and most beautiful
orbit, and everything goes to wreck. It is the
charm of woman's modesty and purity that holds
all society in its coherency Analyze it and you will
see that this is true. Woman's modesty and purity
are the very heart of the social fabric. They form
the centre of gravitation, holding everything in its
place."

The following disposes of Communism almost as
effectually as briefly :

** Communism is radicalism in its final form. Its
historical antecedents are the leveling doctrines of
the French infidelity of the 18th century, imported
by Jefferson, Franklin, and Paine, into this coun-
try, and popularized by them and others during our

LITEBABT LAB OB S. 309

revolt against the mother-country. These doctrines
were taken up and pushed forward upon the line of
their inevitable logic by the Radicals and fantastical
Abolitionists of this country, until they embroiled
the nation in a horrible civil war. And the momen-
tum of this movement, if I see clearly, is still in-
creasing. We have seen its last bloody work in
Paris. Thoughtful men, in the more populous re-
gions of our country, dread the development of the
next five years. For this Radicalism, Abolitionism,
Communism, whichever you may choose to call it,
is also called by another name — Agrarianism. It is
a war on all distinctions. It is the last term of the
svllog-ism, the first being this : all men are created
equal. "

When it is remembered, that the above was writ-
ten in 1871, does it not seem that the recent and still
existing labor troubles appear almost in the light of
its fulfilled prophecy?

This, also, on the neglect of Sabbath-observance
will appear timely :

' ' A great change has been wrought by the influx
of immigrants from the continent of Europe. It is
fully within my recollection that a Christian man
would have been held as a violator of the Sabbath
if he had gone or sent for his mail-matter on that
day Fifteen years ago very few church-members,
within my knowledge, took the Sunday papers.
Nor can I doubt that much that is deepest and most
commanding in Christian sentiment goes along with

810 LITER Alt Y LABORS.

strict views of the sanctity of the Lord's day, and
with the strict consecration of it to his service."

What follows is a fine and discriminating portrait
of popular preachers :

" A few successful men, who, by a daring, dash-
ing manner in the pulpit, supported by a good deal
of personal power, have acquired a national celeb-
rity, are followed by a host of imitators whose only
chance of distinction lies in saying new and startling
things, or adventuring upon some independent, dash-
ing line of policy. A great deal of erratic and un-
healthy thought gets afloat by this means. Fortu-
nately, however, there is but little of it that has
sufficient vitality or vigor to keep itself long on the
surface. Most of it soon sinks out of sight, never
agitating but a small circle, and that but for a mo-
ment."

This, on shallow speculators, is as pointed as it is
pungent :

" I suppose there has been as much light cast
upon the great problem of evil within these twenty-
five years past as in all the ages preceding. But
along with the sober, capable investigation, has
arisen a world of pretentious affectation of philo-
sophical depth, which makes a blunder every time it
undertakes to make an argument Men of this
class are confident and noisy in proportion to their
incapacity. The influence of any one of them
amounts to but little, but in the aggregate they con-
stitute a very appreciable factor in the world of

LITEM ABY LABOBS. 311

thought, and go to make up the sum of irregular
and sinister activities that characterize the present
time. They form no mean proportion of the mis-
chievous tendencies of the moment. "

The following statement of the differences be-
tween Roman Catholics abroad and at home seems
severe :

" Strange to say, in Great Britain and the United
States the Roman-Catholic mind seems to acquiesce
more fully in the spiritual despotism of the Church
than in any other country- Just here where thought
is free as air, the absolute authority of the Church
over thought is yielded by the Romanist in this
country more readily than in Austria. There is not
so much as one Dolinger to be found. This is to
be accounted for by the fact that in this country the
Romanists are constantly on the defensive. The
absurdities of their creed are being constantly as-
sailed, so that they are roused constantly against all
comers. This is just the state of mind in which men
will go for their sect to any length or any extremity -
They will take the most extreme ground when excited
by opposition. The Romanists of this country and
England, therefore, intelligent as many of them are,
are ready for anything that their Church may de-
mand. They will perform feats of credulity that
might edify a Spaniard. If the bishops say so, the
Pope is infallible."

The influence of learning combined with industry
is thus illustrated :

31* LITERARY LABOR 8.

" It is the sumo accuracy of laborious research
which enables Darwin to secure credence for those
inferences which he makes, as if they were necessary
results, when in fact they are not at all so. They
are accepted partly for the show of learning with
which they are set forth, and partly on account of a
disposition, prevalent in some quarters, to embrace
anything that may militate against the simple truth
of the history of creation in the book of Genesis.
They minister to the pride of intellect which is rest-
less under all restraint. It is so restless that it will
grasp at any theory which assumes a rational tone
rather than rest upon a Divine statement in simple
faith."

And how wise and eloquent the caution that fol-
lows :

** In the midst of the rapid evolutions of the
present time we are in danger of disparaging anti-
quity— of holding it in contempt — and in excess of
self-confidence, going fairly wild in the abandon of
speculative adventure 0 Thousands are doing it, to
the detriment of religion and morals. What truth
is yet to be discovered let us have it by all means.
But let us look out, in the meantime, that we do
not exchange the Kohinoor for a paste imitation
from Paris. Inexperienced traficers in gems might
commit such a blunder."

These extracts might be almost indefinitely multi-
plied, no doubt, to the reader's continued edification
and pleasure ; and the following, showing the au-

LITEBABT LABOBS. 313

thor's unshaken confidence in the midst of the perils
to faith which he has so eloquently enumerated ought
not to be omited. though it must conclude these
illustrations :

' ' From what I have written it is not to be infer-
red that I take a gloomy view of the situation. Far
from it. I have said already that the movement is,
in the long run, a true progress. Out of all the up-
roar and effervescence of the present time, good will
come in the end. In the meantime, the movement is
now too violent to be free from danger. There are
sinister elements present. The activity of the mo-
ment is feverish. It threatens, for the time being,
to unsettle, in many minds, the most elementary
truths of religion and morals. Amid the imperfec-
tions of thought and depravities of feeling that are
inherent in human nature, we must well look to
those primary conditions of all that is good which
are given in the Christian faith."

Here, then, with the publication of the Doctrinal
Integrity of Methodism, there will be seven separate
works of our deceased Bishop upon the market in
the hands of the Church for whose glory and honor
he spent his life. When, at the same time, it is re-
membered that he had hardly ever a moment of leis-
ure, and that he never practiced Mr Wesley's favor-
ite method of studying in transitu, this fact must
appear a simple marvel. Indeed, it is easier to con-
ceive how his great ancestor, Cotton Mather, with
unbounded facilities of learning and leisure, could

814 LITE BABY LABORS.

write his three hundred and eighty-two works.
Marvin had no learning but such as he " picked up,"
and no time for literary labor save what he wrested,
with violent hand, from periods due to repose from
the most exhausting physical toils and spiritual
cares. Evidently, "blood will tell," and the essen-
tial qualities of the old Mather-brain had come
down to Marvin.

titaptw g wnt%.

PERSONALITY.

ONE of the most difficult, as well as the most
delicate tasks a writer undertakes is to present
correctly and satisfactorily the personnel of whom
he writes. Few, indeed, are competent to the task.
It is one that demands the best efforts of a pen like
Smollet's or Macauley's ; and few such men as those
have lived either in ancient or modern times.

Each and every individual man has his own pecu-
liarities. How much he may be like to others,
there is always something in mental cast, in tem-
perament, habits, of thought, tones of feeling or
manner of life that is peculiar to himself — some-
thing that identifies him as a being separate and
distinct from all others. Among all the millions of
men that inhabit the earth, it is doubtful if there be
any two faces or forms that are precisely alike : and
the same may be said of intellectual, sensitive and
moral casts, culture and development. Each has
something in these that distinguishes him from all

others.

Then the secret springs of human actions are so
hidden, lie so far out of sight — the recesses of the

816 PERSONALITY.

heart are so deep, and to all outside, so dark, that
after all our supposed acquaintanceship, we really
know so little, of each other as that we are con-
tinually liahle to misconstrue actions, misjudge
the motives which prompted them or to misin-
terpret language used, by affixing to it a mean-
ing foreign from that in which the speaker or writer
used it

Absolute perfection belongs to none on earth.
To a greater or less extent, weakness, infirmity and
imperfection are predicable of all — no exemption,
no exception. In common with all others, the sub-
ject of these sketches had his, of which fact he was
fully aware. No allusion has been made to them in
the preceding pages, nor will there be other than a
mere allusion to them here. It is unnecessary:
Every one knows that, though a good, and in many
respects a great man, yet he was a man, with more
or less of the weakness and imperfection inhering in
our common humanity Hence no detail or particu-
larization of these is called for at all. Besides, the
object of biography, especially religious biography,
is, or ought to be, the presentation of the strong
points of mental and moral excellence — show how
these excel lencies were attained and maintained —
the labors performed — the difficulties encountered —
the obstacles overcome — the successes gained — the
manner in which they are gained, and the uses made
of them. These are the proper themes in religious
biography, presented and dwelt upon that others

PEBSONALITY. 317

may be stimulated and encouraged to imitative lives
and labors. But no sane man will call for a detail
of human weaknesses or human mistakes and errors
for the purposes of imitation. In cases where there
were marked erraticisms or gross errors in the lives
of men, biographers may do well to note and record
them as warnings to others. But when, as in the
present case, there were none of these, and the in-
dividual characterized by no more than the common
and inherent imperfections of our common humanity,
it were best to pass them in silence and dwell upon
their opposites, especially when there is every reason
to believe that what of mistakes there were, were
mistakes in judgment, and not in purpose of
heart.

" Truth is to every man as he perceives it." His
perceptions may be at fault ; still, such as they are
at any given time, he must be guided by them if he
move at all. And the present writer now proceeds
to present the leading traits and prominent charac-
teristics of the subject of these sketches, as he —
the writer — perceived and understood them.

Physically, Marvin was so unlike most other
men as to be set down, in the mind of any one
seeing him for the first time, as a person of strik-
ingly peculiar appearance. He was tall and
slight, long-limbed, and what is sometimes called
loose-jointed. His gait was irregular, and his atti-
tudes often somewhat awkward. He took no pains
to stand erectly and gracefully, and was never seen

818 PERSONALITY.

to bulge out his bosom like a policeman. His hands
and feet were long and slender, even to attenuation.
His face was long^ with the nose prominent and the
whole head high and narrow, the complexion being
of a consistent and unchanging palor The eyes,
in repose, were dark, oblong, reserved and musing-
looking ; though they could, on occasion, sparkle
with mirth, scintillate with resentment, or freeze
with coldness. The mouth was large, prominent and
wide, with the lips full nearly to overhanging, and
apparently by some nervous influence, almost per-
petually in motion. His beard, which was black,
was for many years worn in full, though not of
unseemly length. His clothes were often ill-fitting,
especially in early life, and apparently put on and
worn with no little carelessness. His favorite hat
was the black, soft, wide-brimmed Western thing
familiarly known as the "slouch," and this, when
put on and worn, was usually depressed by deep
indentations. It is not surprising that, on his foreign
tour, he was taken, from his appearance and manner,
for "the Rev Mr Bishop." The following, from
Rev. Dr. Deems, in Frank Leslie's Sunday Maga-
zine for April, 1878, describes his appearance on the
occasion of his election to the Episcopal office in New
Orleans, in 1866 :

* ' He was too rudely dressed to enter the church
where he was to be received as bishop-elect, so sev-
eral of the ministers, at the suggestion of the Rev
Dr. Charles K. Marshall, insisted on presenting to

PEBSONALITY. 319

him a clerical suit becoming; the occasion. He was
the first man of his church who had been elected to
the episcopacy with a full suit of beard . We recol-
lect distinctly that the senior bishop called us to him
before Mr. Marvin s consecration and said :

" See here, doctor, couldn't you persuade the new
bishop to have his face shaved ? ' '

" Don't know, bishop; its dangerous to take a
man by the beard."

That evening, while the conversation was general
and genial, we took the liberty to suggest that the
beard was an offense to some of the brethren.

" They'll have to stand it, said he ; they elected
me in my beard, and they must endure me in my
beard."

" Yes," we suggested, " but remember you were
not present when you were elected. I doubt whether
they could have been persuaded to elect you if they
had seen what a homely man you are, shaved or
bearded."

He laughed at this sally, but insisted on keeping
as much of his homeliness as possible under hair.

In a private note, Bishop McTyeire reminds us
that sixteen years ago we remarked that " Bishop
Marvin's nose stood on his face as the nose of Calvin
is painted on his. We believe we did notice

that."

This seemingly frail physique was capable of the
most sustained and unintermitted exertion. From
the date of his episcopal election down to the day

320 PERSONALITY.

of his death, he hardly ever knew the luxury of
repose. Day and night he strained nerve and mus-
cle in the service of the Church, till the long tension
snapped at last the chords of life.

Pathematically, as well as physically, he was an
uncommon man. His feelings were at once quick
and strong. The remark may seem easy, but the
combination is most unusual. Sensitive and sus-
ceptible men are generally the subjects of frequent
and sudden mutations of regard and purpose ; while
those in whom the currents of emotion flow more
deeply and steadily are comparatively unimpression-
able. There would seem, indeed, to exist a differ-
ence amounting to incompatibility between the very
sensitive and the very strong temperaments. Yet
both these were found united in Marvin. He was
susceptible as a woman to slight or flattery, and
strong as the strongest man to reward or punish
either. Not that he could be pleased by the ordinary
and gross forms of personal adulation. From these,
his intelligence and sensibility alike revolted ; while
they appealed so strongly to his conscious foible as
to provoke, when attempted, his serious resentment.
On this account, he could not bear a word of frank
and downright praise. It seemed to him a device of
the enemy of his soul ; and he would gravely remon-
strate with any man who uttered it. On the other
hand, small attentions and gentle deferences,
whether real or insincere, bound their giver to him
" as with hooks of steel." Of course, this rendered

PERSONALITY. 321

him liable to be imposed upon by subtle and skillful
men ; and it is well known, in point of fact, that
most of his mistakes were committed under such an
influence. So, a great enmity left him intact; he
could easily pass it by ; but slight or indifference
stung him to the quick, and he found it almost im-
possible to forget it. Sometimes, indeed, his resent-
ments may have spurred him to a more than equal
reprisal for these fancied injuries, though he rarely
sought to repair them. On the contrary, he seemed
to brood over the original offense with a feeling
intensified, perhaps, by his own subsequent course.
He has been called "a good hater."* The fol-
lowing incident of his early ministry will sufficiently
illustrate this trait in his singular character :

" His second year was on the Oregon Mission. A
short time before his fourth quarterly meeting, he
received a letter from his presiding elder, Rev W
W Redman, requesting him to meet him at a quar-
terly meeting near Savannah and accompany him to
his own quarterly meeting on the Oregon Mission.
The youthful Marvin, glad of having an opportunity
of spending so much time in the company of so wise
and so good a man as Redman, complied with the
request. He and Redman stopped with the same
family during the meeting. The lady of the house
treated him with the utmost indifference, showing
him no attention whatever, not so much as speaking

* Rev. Dr. T. A. Summers, in his Introduction to Marvin's
Letters of Travel.

:W2 rEliSOXALI'lY.

to him excepting Jd the table lie was not extrava-
gant in his expectations, but he fell that this entire
laek of attention was unkind. On Sabbath, the pre-
siding elder told him that he must preach at .'5 oYloek
v m. He tried to beg off, but the presiding elder
would not excuse him. I he services were held in
open air, under an arbor constructed tor the occa-
sion, with a rude pulpit' lor the preacher At the
appointed time, Marvin entered the pulpit and com-
menced the introductory service. Many heads were
lmiiu: in disappointment, and some of the conure<ra-
tion quietly withdrew, got on their horses and went
home. This had a very depressing effect upon the
young preacher. He cast himself upon God and
cried for help. And God did help him. I have
heard him say that, if God ever helped him, he
thought he helped him that afternoon, and that he
then preached the best sermon he had ever preached
up to that time;. The power of God came down
upon the congregation in a most wonderful manner
Many were shouting, and some were on the ground
crying to (iod for mercy Marvin had left the pul-
pit and was down among the people. The lady at
whose house he had been staying was shouting, and
came to him wuh both hands extended, and taking
both his hands in hers, said : " O, brother Marvin,
when are you coming to see us again?' He
answered, k Never again, I hope, sister, unless the
judgment should sit somewhere about here.' No
sooner had the words escaped his lips, than he felt

PERSONALITY. 323

that he had done wrong, but there was no chance for
apology " *

The last phrase in the above narrative, which
is evidently Marvin's own, is strongly character-
istic of the trait under consideration: "there was
?io chance for apology r The persistency of the
stern Puritanic force which laid the foundations
of his character asserted itself in all similar exio-en-
cies of his life. The remark of Dr Deems, already
quoted, that "Bishop Marvin's nose stood on his
face as the nose of Calvin is painted on his," was not
a mere fancy In their strong love of strong doc-
trine, in their intolerance of everything that looked
like heresy, and in their singular blending of per-
sonal resentments with the cause of Divine justice,
these two great men had much in common.

On the other hand, his generous devotion to those
whom he regarded as his friends was unbounded.
No sacrifice of personal convenience or interest was
too great, in his opinion, for them to ask or for him
to grant. This made him the most charming of
friends to his sincere lovers, and the most valuable
of friends to his interested seekers. The former used
him without remorse, and the latter without scruple.
He was so ready, so willing, so delighted to serve
them, even to self-exhaustion, that affection never
stopped to measure his powers, any more than in-
terest could pause in the satisfaction of its greed.

* Rev. Dr. W M. Rush, in a letter to the author. And adds :
"I have heard him (Marvin) repeatedly relate this anecdote."

324 PERSONALITY.

To this rule of ceaseless importunity and inordi-
nate demand, on the part of friends and sycophants,
there was, however, one very notable exception on
the part of his own family. These seemed to see in
him a consecrated man, and to submit with cheerful-
ness to their almost continued privation of his society
and to those domestic inconveniencies which resulted
from his frequent pecuniary benefactions abroad.
With unswerving fidelity and unchanging cheerful-
ness, they welcomed his coming and speeded his
parting, though he came and went, during the long
period of his episcopal service, almost like a tran-
sient guest. Keturning at night after a protracted
absence, the morrow saw him, without rest or recre-
ation, afoot, abroad and eagerly attentive to the
local interests of his neighborhood, while the follow-
ing evening witnessed his departure for another
distant field of labor c To all this he was enabled,
by the unwearying devotion of his incomparable
wife, whose expression to the first comers, in lieu of
all murmur or complaint, on the sad occasion of her
husband's death, reaches the height of the true sub-
lime, and is worthy of imperishable remembrance —
" Isn't God good to me? He died at home." That
he warmly appreciated her wise and tender care, he
has left a public testimonial in that touching dedica-
tion to her of his-latest work, which has been quoted
in these pages. Among the on dits of the social
circles where his family resided for some years prior
to his death j is a pleasant illustration of the truth

PEBS0NAL1TY. 325

that he was almost a stranger at home. It is said
that, on one occasion, in society a gentleman unac-
quainted with the Bishop's family was expatiating to
his daughter, in glowing terms, on the merits of a
discourse to which he had recently listened ; " and,
by the way," he continued, "the preacher's name
is the same as yours — Marvin— do you know him?"
" I can't say that I am acquainted with him," the
young lady replied, "but — he is my father.'"

The leading quality of Marvin's intellect was
rational ; and the preponderance of this quality was
so great as to leave the imitative and ruminative
powers almost out of sight. He could never have
done anything in art, and it is doubtful if he could
ever have succeeded in originating premises. All
his intelligent energies wrought together for a single
end ; and this it was which made him intellectually
great. He saw at a glance not, perhaps, all that a
subject contained, but all of its contents that he was
capable of seeing from a given point of view ; and
to see more, it was needful for him to change
his angle of vision and look at it from another side.
His mental activity was thus the condition of his
mental life. A solitary student in his chamber, no
library would have been sufficient for his needs. A
prisoner in a lonely cell, without books or compan-
ionships, he must soon have pined and died.

"His volume heretofore was man."

This, indeed, was the preferred study of his whole

826 PERSONALITY,

life. Few other men ever garnered so richly from
the field of habitual association. With every fresh
human companionship he gained that necessary
change in his angle of vision by which alone he
could see more of every subject commanded by his
mental eye As once before remarked, to such a
mind the ceaseless activity of the Methodist Itiner-
ancy was as perfectly adapted as if they had been
mutually made for each other. But for this provi-
dential association the world and the Church would
have had no Marvin. It is not meant, of course,
that a man of this name would not have lived and
labored and been respectable in other walks, but
that nowhere else could he have been developed to
the unqualified greatness which rendered him an
important factor in the welfare of his kind.

The quality of his mind fitted him supremely for
extemporaneous oratory, and in this field he had
few equals. His best discourses will never be pub-
lished, because he could not write them, and they
could only have been caught from his lips. There
were times when he spoke for hours as if divinely
inspired ; when, to the hearer, he seemed wrapped
in a celestial halo, whence shone a broad and steady
light that illuminated the whole universe of thought
Could he have been accurately reported at such
times, the fame of his sermons would not have been
surpassed in his day As it was, they will linger
only as an impression of the wondrous eloquence of
the man in the memories of those who were fortu-

PEBS0NAL1TY. 327

nate enough to hear them. Usually, however, owing
to the continued state of mental and physical exhaus-
tion in which he lived and labored, he was as a
preacher slow, hesitating, and somewhat inconse-
quent, though much given to efforts at relieving
the conscious apathy of his mind by citing, mem-
oriter, from the utterances of happier hours. In
this way certain favorite passages became fixed in
his memory, and he has even reproduced them in
his published writings. It is well known that his
readiness and facility in controversy, which was due
to his peculiar mental constitution, first laid the
foundation of his wider fame. He saw in a moment
all the exigencies of the existing question, and met
them with equal promptitude and effectiveness. The
following incident is finely illustrative of these
qualities :

"In 1850 Brother Marvin traveled the Monticello
Circuit. During the year a Campbehte preacher,
by the name of Brown, visited Monticello and de-
livered a number of discourses on the distinctive
features of the < current reformation . ' Among others
was a discourse upon Christian Union, in which he
urged all Christian people to cast away all distinc-
tive written creeds and unite upon the Bible. If
there were differences of opinion, as doubtless there
were, let those differences be held as private prop-
erty, and let all unite on the Bible. The people
were out to hear him, the house was crowded ; many
Methodists were there, and among them was Marvin.

328 PERSONALITY.

The sermon was closed with an earnest appeal, and
all were invited to unite upon the Bible. The first
one to move was. Brother Marvin. He went deliber-
ately forward. The congregation were amazed.
The Methodists were well nigh in a state of conster-
nation ; and the ill-suppressed whisper was heard
all over the house, * Is Brother Marvin going to
leave us ?' . The preacher met Marvin half way up
the aisle, and grasping his hand, said, * I am glad to
meet you, Brother Marvin ; I ain glad to meet you.'
Marvin said, 'I have listened to you attentively to-
night ; I believe union a good thing, and, if your
plan is practicable, it may be desirable.' After a
few moments the preacher inquired of Marvin when
it would suit him to be baptized. He replied, * I
have been baptized by effusion.' * But, Brother
Marvin,' said the preacher, * effusion is not baptism.'
* Brother Brown,' said Marvin, * you may believe it
is not, but I believe it is. This is a mere difference
of opinion. This difference we will hold as private
property and unite on the Bible.' The preacher
was evidently embarrassed, and at length said,
1 Brother Marvin, we can not receive you unless you
will consent to be baptized.' ' Can not receive me,'
said Marvin,' * unless I will consent to be baptized?
I tell you I have been baptized. I come upon your
own invitation to meet you upon the Bible, holding
our differences of opinion as private property ; and
lo, I find vou full three feet in Jordan !' Marvin
then announced to the audience that having listened

PEBSONALITY. 329

to the discourse he was satisfied that the plan of
union proposed was impracticable, and he had chosen
that method of exposing it. He then challenged
Mr. Brown to discuss with him the questions at issue
between them, which challenge was declined, and
Mr Brown left. All this is said to have occurred in
the Methodist house of worship." *

Morally, if morality consist in fidelity to one's
convictions of right, hardly any man of modern
times could be accounted superior to Marvin. None
could be truer to his creeds. He even refined upon
and exaggerated the admitted moral restrictions of
his life. He had a private sumptuary code of com-
mentary for every statute of the moral law In all
his virtues, he was so extreme as to border on ascet-
ism. His purity was unchallenged ; his temperance,
total abstinence, and his benevolence, selling all he
had and giving to the poor. In all his personal
habits save one — his addiction to smoking — he might
have stood for a model of one of those old Puritans
from whom he was descended.

Marvin's character was of the most intense type.
As a boy he may be said, in the popular language of
the day, to have " embraced Religion " with an un-
dying clasp ; and thenceforward he held her as the
dearest treasure of his heart, his soul and his life.
His God-ward relation was always close and intimate.

*Kev. Dr. W M. Rush, in a letter to the author; and adds,
"I have this anecdote from such sources that I can not doubt
it is substantially correct."

830 PERSONALITl

He lived as in the immediate presence and constant
communion of his Maker He was always, in his
own esteem, God's servant, doing God's will. If
in anything he erred herein, his error was human,
and may well be forgiven by both friends and foes.
The Holy Scriptures were, for him, the pure and
infallible word of God. The doctrinal interpretation
of those Scriptures, known as Methodist theology,
met all the requirements of his intellect and his
heart. To use his own expression, it " not only
satisfied, but gratified " him. He saw no inconsist-
encies, nor felt any hardness, in this interpreted plan
of moral government. All here was, in his view,
worthy of God, and demanded the ceaseless admira-
tion and gratitude of men. God was, or might be-
come, their father, friend, saviour, sanctifier and
comforter — what more would they ask, or could they
have? In this faith and experience, he spent his
nights and days. God was almost always sensibly
near him. He called to him, in the watches of the
night or in the labors and perils of the day, and
heard his voice in tender and loving response. As
he had lived in the high assurance of this faith,
so, on the morning of Monday, the 27th of Novem-
ber, 1877, in his own home, and surrounded by his
family, Enoch Mather Marvin passed from earth
away. Of the sorrows of his friends and church
others have written much, worthily and sufficiently
The author of the present volume will but add — and
the words might well stand for his epitaph — that he
literally worked himself to death.